Director: Robert Enriquez
Writer: Robert Enriquez (Screenplay)
Starring: Robert Enriquez, Garrett Barghash, Phillip Cook, Mike Markoff, Dana Kippel, Elisa Janelle Alpizar
Plot: In the near future, a pandemic has ravaged the earth. Fear, greed and destruction have made way for such terrors as famine, pirates, and zombies. CAIRO YAZID’s, only chance for survival is to join forces with a curmudgeon, SOLOMON, also still untouched by the fatal virus, as he is the only one who knows the secret location of the safe place known simply as THE COVE.
Tagline – Fear of other people is what got us in this whole mess in the first place
Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Escape to the Cove starts in the aftermath of the virus outbreak, Cairo (Barghash) is wondering the streets alone, while the wanderers (zombies) looking for their latest victims. Cairo is joined by another lone survivor Olivia (Kippel) as they search for a plan to get out of the city, to a place known as The Cove, a place of safety.
When the pair get close to the boats for the journey, they meet the psychopath Luther (Markoff) and his men, who are looking to take everything from their victims, with Capt. Benjamin Solomon (Enriquez) always halting their attempts. Solomon offers to help for a night, seeing the good in Cairo, only for Luther to be hatching a plan, proving once again, that in a zombie infected world, humans are the most dangerous creature.
Thoughts on Escape to the Cove
Characters & Performances – Cairo is the young man lost in the zombie infected city, looking for the next location for supplies or safety, he isn’t the strongest in combat, often looking like easy target for people to attack. He has lost everything in his life, with his search having the desire to have people in his life. Garrett Barghash does bring the young man that looks completely out of place to life here, which is refreshing in a world we usually see ultra-strong leaders in the leading role. Capt. Benjamin Solomon watches over the harbor for survivors or threats, he will help people in need, while avoiding the idea of reaching the promised safety land of The Cove. He reluctantly lets Cairo stay around him, knowing the pirates are a bigger threat, ones he believes he can control. Robert Enriquez on the performances side is great, being the wiser figure in the world where he needs to bring the deadlier character to life. Luther is the leader of the pirates, a former member of Solomon’s unit that has been hunting people through the outbreak, leading a group of ruthless men around the city. Mike Markoff does gives us the psychopath figure needed to show the human villains in this world.
Story – The story here follows a lone young man survivors in a zombie infested world that finds himself getting drawn into a battle between two sides of a former military unit, one wanting to stop the other getting to a safety location known as The Cove. This is a story that does keep everything simple in terms of ideas, it does however feel like just the beginning of a much bigger story, one that does seem to be getting dragged out more than anything else, we learn next to nothing about what caused the outbreak, why the area is going to become so popular for the survivors in this world. It is an easy watch, but it will leave you wanting more.
Themes – Escape to the Cove is a horror movie entering into the zombie sub-genre we have seen plenty of before. We don’t get very much zombie like action, focusing more on the human villains in this world. The location in a big city with a harbour, which is one of the more discussed plans to go if a zombie outbreak happened, but it doesn’t look like the chaos ever happened there. With the strongest part of the film being the name for the water zombies, sealions, which are the biggest non-human threat in the film.
Final Thoughts – Escape to the Cove an easy watch zombie movie that lacks the intensity we have come to expect from the zombie movie world.