The Colony (2013)

The Colony (2013) NR - Years after man-made weather control systems froze the entire surface of the Earth, a band of survivors struggle to stay alive in an underground bunker.  When they receive a mysterious SOS from a sister colony, what they discover there is a bigger threat than the cold.

The Colony has a pretty stellar cast spinning a yarn that could be considered a doomsday prepper's wet dream.  Lawrence Fishburne (The Signal) is Briggs, a former soldier who saw command break
down during the relief efforts at the beginning of the crisis, and leader of the colony.  Bill Paxton (Frailty) is Mason, a trigger-happy, every-man-for-himself security officer trying to take power.  Caught between them is Sam played by Kevin Zegers (The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones), a survivor found orphaned on the snowy surface ten years ago.  The colonists keep hoping someone will find a way to shut down or modify the weather control towers and create a thaw before they all starve.  When a nearby colony similar to theirs breaks off contact, then mysteriously starts sending a simple SOS signal, Briggs, Sam and a young boy head off to investigate and help if they can.

What they discover when they arrive could easily be called zombies, cannibals, zombie-cannibals, or heck... go full-on geek and call them Reavers (Firefly).  Whatever you call them, they are fast, they are nasty, and some of them are damn hard to kill, even with a head shot.

This was a pretty good film until about 20 minutes from the end.  At that point, in my opinion, it got unnecessarily gruesome... to the point where I wondered if Sam had somehow caught their feral nature like a virus.  Up until then, I was enjoying the film a lot.  Plot points were set up nicely and clearly.  You never really questioned what the heck was going on... you could easily see who the players were, the possible pitfalls, and the dangers.  Where special skills came from.  Why characters were motivated to be the way they were... although I could have done with a bit more in-depth about Mason, and why he was such a dick.  And with Mason shooting so many people for some pretty thin reasons, you have to wonder why someone didn't just simplify things and shoot him instead.

Despite that, there were no eyeroll counts on this film, though I did come close.  There was a laugh out loud moment at the beginning when they were discussing the rabbits, and several needle-drops during some of the more intense fighting.

Generally this is a good movie to craft to... I got several rows done on my complex afghan.  If the gruesome details might bother you, hunch down over your needles and wait... they don't last too long.  Overall I give this a four out of five stars.  Perhaps this was a longer film, and some of the detail was left on the cutting room floor, but between a certain undefinable lack of richness and the overly-gruesome "boss fight", I had to ding it one star.