Post

A grieving father faces the loss of his family whilst taking shelter from a nuclear war which has broken out across the world.

Paul (Ebert) has managed to get himself to safety after the first nuclear bombs have dropped on the UK. Somewhere, up on a hillside, on the outskirts of town, Paul has taken himself to an old ‘post’ – a ROC (Royal Observer Corps) shelter which had been built during the Cold War to monitor radiation levels in the event of a nuclear fallout. As a bit of a ‘prepper’, Paul has bought and taken ownership of the shelter and has kitted it out with all the mod-cons of post-apocalyptic living. With plenty of canned goods, dried food, potable water, and electric dynamos hooked up to an exercise bike, Paul is in the best place to keep an eye on the world and the radiation levels, as he sits out the time waiting for the day that he will be able to resurface.

Alongside Paul on this extended retreat is his family – wife, Suzy (Bound) and daughter, Maria (Winnan) – and even if they aren’t technically there, or alive, they still take up a lot of space inside that small underground bunker, as well as inside Paul’s mind. On the CB is John, another survivor who is hiding out in his own home with his own wife and children, and over the course of the film the two men build a tentative friendship based on a mutual understanding of needing to protect those they love.

Inside the shelter, Paul’s new life is fairly well catered for, with him managing to eat, sleep, wash, and exercise all within the confined space of about fourteen feet by six feet. In contrast, John is finding it difficult to keep life going in the outside world, with resources scarce, radiation everywhere, and trouble brewing on the streets. There are outlaw gangs roaming around, looking for whatever they can get their hands on, and now the battle for survival is really hotting-up, as John must keep them away from his home and his family.

Sadly, this means that most of the conflict and action in Post is actually happening elsewhere. While we hear about John’s difficulties and real crises over the citizens band radio, we sit with Paul in the bunker, in relative ease and safety, as he deals with the loss of his family over a year earlier. Of course, this inner conflict is integral to Paul’s story, and the idea of him using this time to finally come to terms with his loss and say ‘goodbye’ to his wife and daughter, is really what Post is about, however, it does mean that we as the viewer are limited to watching dull, slightly repetitive actions, in an enclosed space, while we hear about all the actual conflict happening out in the real world.

Interestingly, writer/director, Terry Winnan also released another short film last year, named Prepared, which actually focused on the exact situations that we only hear about in Post. In the same scenario of a nuclear war, a man tries to keep his family safe while society crumbles around him, and without having seen this film, it seems as though this has a better focus for a post-apocalyptic thriller, staying where the action and the conflict actually takes place. However, for Post we stay inside the bunker and deal with the theme of loss from a more personal perspective, giving a more simplified and isolated point of view than we might otherwise have got elsewhere.

The scenario of a nuclear war is obviously one which interests Winnan, having now made two movies on the subject, and his production company RVA Synergies Productions might just shed some light on why this is the case. Before creating his production house, Winnan ran the engineering arm of RVA Synergies, which developed and manufactured a special air filter product for use in safe rooms and emergency shelters. One of these air filters makes an appearance in Post, and while it may be far enough away from actual product placement, it’s easy to see where Winnan gets his ideas and his motivations from.

The film itself is fairly well made, with decent lighting, photography, acting, and special effects where needed. The sound design is particularly good, with the CB conversations and radio messages sounding like they are actually in the room, and a nice little indie song thrown in for good measure. There’s some decent attempt at backstory, as we flashback to how Paul’s family died, and everything is edited well into the sequence of the twenty-two-minute runtime.

Unfortunately for Post, all the action takes place elsewhere, and the revelation that Paul’s family are dead, just not by the nuclear holocaust, is one that doesn’t really resonate. Still, if you fancy a bit of a chamber piece with a good dollop of claustrophobia and inner turmoil mixed in, but just not for too long a time, Post will see you through until you’re able to resurface into the real world at the end of it.