SNAPSHOT
From the producer of The Babadook, and starring Martin Freeman, comes Cargo. Based on the viral short film, this is the story of a man and his infant daughter who are stranded in the middle of a zombie apocalypse in rural Australia. And when he becomes infected, the countdown begins for him to find her protection before he changes forever. (synopsis via Laughing Squid)
There is a crucial element that separates deeply affecting tales of an apocalyptic future, the kind that don’t rely on schlock horror alone, and tinny, nasty stories of world-ending humanity debased, and that’s remembering that these are real people involved in an horrifically fantastical situation.
Forget that, and you may deliver a red hot violent mess of gory action, but very little else, making in the end for a wholly unsatisfying viewing experience for your audience.
It doesn’t look like the makers of Cargo have missed that important lesson at all.
In fact, as you watch Martin Freeman playing a man who is desperately using the last 48 hours of his non-zombie life to find someone to care for his infant daughter, on the way encountering a young indigenous man and a host of other displaced characters, all of whom comes across, even in passing, as real people grappling with a situation far beyond anything they have dealt with before, you appreciate again and again how much apocalyptic dramas benefit from remembering to fuel their narratives with the concerns of the character and not the desire to scare or terrorise.
The good news is these impressions from the trailer look like they are borne by the film itself.
Take this snippet from a review by Luke Buckmaster in The Guardian:
“Nevertheless Cargo is a very strong, at times stirring achievement: a zombie film with soul and pathos. The living dead are frightening again, not because of jump scares, surprise attacks or haunted house style shenanigans, but because they remind us of truly terrifying things: losing ourselves, and our loved ones.”
Or this excerpt from Alex Lines (Film Inquiry):
“Cargo is a dramatic horror picture for people who don’t like horror movies, so for the younger audiences expecting a jump scare marathon lubricated by a heavy dosage of gore may have to seek out other fare.”
Sure zombies are terrifying in and of themselves, but as Buckmaster particularly points out, what scares us the most is losing our humanity, our innate sense of self and our connections with loved ones and friends.
That is far more terrifying than mindless monsters in every way, and Cargo wisely remembers that, delivering up, by all accounts, one of the, ahem, freshest, zombies stories in quite some time.
Cargo premieres on Netflix on 18 May.