Containment (2015)

(A warning in advance that you may find this post upsetting if experiencing post traumatic symptoms from the Coronavirus outbreak)

2 years ago today; 23rd March 2021, the UK Government announced the first COVID-19 lockdown. Shops closed down. Schools were shut. Everyone was ordered to stay at home. You couldn't hug your nan, you couldn't have a pint, in fact the only place that remained open for socialising and hospitality was Number 10 Downing Street... And I have resisted for a long time covering anything remotely pandemic related because fuck, there was enough of it in the news, on social media, during your Zoom calls, that you didn't need reminded of it any more than you already were. But as we gaze back with fondness at the hazy pandemic period whilst the threat of complete and total nuclear annihilation looms over us like the sword of fucking Damocles, I thought it would only be fitting that this weeks FTW movie pick be one of several dodgy "contagious disease outbreak" orientated movies that litter the B-Movie bargain bucket like so many discarded face masks.

Waking up to discover not only has the power and water been cut off to his apartment but someone has - quite literally - sealed him inside; Mark (Lee Ross) begins to realise that his morning is about to get a whole lot more scary when he spots suited up orange Hazmat figures patrolling around the grounds outside, and even more so when two of his neighbouring residents smash a hole in his wall and invade his apartment... Hooking up with said invader; Sergei (Andrew Leung), as well as Sally (Louise Brealey), and Aiden (Billy Postlethwaite) who follow through the hole... the four begin to try and make sense of the situation as a message over the apartment intercom system tells them to "please remain calm" before Mark remembers his neighbour; Enid (Sheila Reid) may be in distress, and deploying his claw hammer once again - Sergei batters his way through into the next apartment where they discover her flat out with an empty bottle of... whiskey I think? But alive none the less. Back in Mark's apartment the five, joined by Sergei's younger brother who never speaks, watch on as the Hazmat team begin to set up a field hospital and evacuate coughing residents from the adjacent apartment block as a message over the intercom informs the residents that a "gas leak" is currently being dealt with. Watching on the group are horrified when one of the residents tries to make a run for it only to be shot dead in his tracks causing chaos to break out at ground level. And the situation only worsens when they watch Hazmat suited people invade an apartment and separate a father and his child. Determining that they need to escape, Mark - being a conceptual artist devises a solution to try and melt the plastic seal around the doors which works but they are distracted when Sergei's brother; Nicu (Gabriel Senior) disappears. Discovering Nicu in a ventilation tunnel, Mark and Sergei are close to rescuing him when two Hazmat suits pull him from the gap on the other side. Bursting out the flat Mark and Sergei give chase, catching the Hazmat suits on the stairs, Sergei bludgeons one to death with a baseball bat but after Mark manages to talk him round, Sergei takes the second one prisoner, and returns to the apartment parading the Hazmat hostage in front of the window for the ground teams to see. Reasoning with Sergei not to kill her, Mark tries to extract information from the hostage who reveals her name is Hazel (Pippa Nixon) and tells the group that an super contagious virus is spreading fast, causing death in all cases, and with no known vaccine, but when Sergei rushes her and unzips her suit, Hazel reveals she is carrying a vaccine, but only an experimental one and that everyone's best chance of survival is to stay within the perimeter. As night falls, and the group discuss the vaccine, Hazel escapes and tries to make a run for it, resulting in a skirmish breaking out with Sergei accidentally hitting Nicu, causing him to realise his temper isn't helping the situation. As the night progresses, the group are alerted to Nicu knocking on the window to an entire mob of residents from the neighbouring tower storming across the yard to their tower. Using the intercom the residents demand to speak to Hazel, as she is the only one of the Hazmat team left alive, but when Mark refuses they storm the apartment block anyway, desperate to secure a vaccine. As Mark, Sergei and Sally work to barricade the corridor doors shut, before they can finish the job, the residents reach the doors and when one of them smashes the glass to try and break through, Sally takes a shard to the neck, wounding her badly and despite everyone's efforts she bleeds out and doesn't make it. Thinking he can make an escape, Aiden steals Hazel's suit and flees the apartment only to be shot dead from above when he makes it outside as the others watch on from the window. Feeling like any hope of escape has now gone, the situation suddenly worsens when the other residents return to the tower and are now able to get in following Aiden's escape. Starting to evacuate, Mark begins to free Hazel from her restraints but Sergei, not wanting to take Hazel with them, demands Mark leave her behind and when Mark refuses he knocks him out with a baseball bat. When Mark comes to, Hazel is missing, and when he intercepts an escaping Sergei, Nicu and Enid in the corridor they discover the Hazmat team are now piping poison gas into the building and make a plan to escape to the roof. Travelling further up, discovering Hazel's dead body along the way, Mark makes the decision to abandon Sergei and leave him behind when he gets into a fight with some of the other residents and is dragged away. Making it to the roof, the surviving trio of Mark, Enid and Nicu sleep through the night and in the morning it becomes obvious that something has gone very wrong, with no people and no traffic to be seen or heard. When Enid, who has been the best character throughout this thing, "doesn't wake up" Mark and Nicu leave her behind and begin to escape through the car park fire exit: from rooftop to ground level passing bodies along the way. Making it to the ground and overhearing a load speaker announcing "anyone found outdoors will be treated as an infection risk", Mark dons a Hazmat suit himself and as they begin to make their escape through a park, Mark is attacked by another resident, thinking he is a Hazmat kidnapping Nicu. Managing to fight him off but severely wounded himself, Mark sends Nicu on his way with his phone promising him safety if he calls the number when he has signal but before Nicu can even make it out the park he is captured from behind by two people in Hazmat suits and injected. In the closing scene, Nicu wakes up on what looks to be a large life raft on the ocean, surrounded by other children, and a lady in a Hazmat suit tells him he is going to be safe...

Wow. I am... slightly out of my comfort zone here because this was actually a really decent movie. And that's one of the things I really like about covering these 'Free to Watch' movies, because in amongst all the dodgy B-Movies and the trashy knock-offs, just occasionally you come across an absolute perfect diamond. This happened before with The Phoenix Project, and whilst I admittedly did enjoy that more, this was by no means not as good. Most of everything they got right here. It was intelligently produced, visually appealing and emotionally captivating.

Before pressing on with analysis of the film, a note that this was produced in 2015 and I know coronaviruses were nothing new before 2019, but there were parallels between this and the real life events of the last 2 years that at times were almost uncanny. The hysteria over a vaccine, the paranoia and suspicion over 'who is telling the truth', the usage of some of the phrases in the movie all felt very reminiscent of things that would go on to almost be part of everyday life. I think if you watched this pre-2019 you would have felt elements of it were completely dis-believable but having now survived a global pandemic, I can completely appreciate that people just purely wouldn't follow the rules, wouldn't believe what they were being told and would act completely irrationally when faced with the same scenario because they errr... did. Evidently.

But I'm not going to spend the rest of this post drawing parallels between this and COVID for a number of reasons, so swiftly moving on - as I mentioned before they got most of everything right here. The acting was pretty top rate from everybody involved. Everyone here felt like a real person. Even the slightly nutty, conspiracy theorist; Aiden. These all felt like real people you might know and everyone did a really great job in their role. But the standout person for me, was Sheila Reid as Enid. She was witty and amusing, sarcastic, but also because of her age; vulnerable and delicate. How she warmed to Nicu over the course of the movie and how she treated the whole series of events as a trivial compared to her previous experiences did a great job of building emotional attachment to her, and Sheila Reid did a outstanding job. An absolute cinema veteran and a legend.

Aside from the acting, the plot development was perfect as the film moved from development to development and something I don't comment on often as it usually doesn't apply, but this film did a really good job of building tension between moments and escalating and ramping up the sheer hopelessness and emotion of the situation. Some of the best Hollywood blockbuster thrillers struggle with this but here the chemistry was just right. And the plot played out mostly perfectly, although they took the route of "one last survivor" as is often the way with these kind of movies, which was a little bit cliché and a little bit predictable by the time the second or third death plays out.

Cinematography and soundtrack however was perfect. There was some really great camera work and some intelligent use of scene framing to keep the movie interesting despite the fact most the entire thing was shot inside 2 or 3 apartment rooms and it deployed that indie freestyle camerawork you sometimes get with these movies to great effect when it needed to immerse you in the actions of a character. And the same to be said about the movies soundtrack; when they wanted to build tension with the music they executed it perfectly. And there was expertly placed moments of minimal natural background noise to build on the feeling of isolation and to make the movie feel real. It was clear a lot of time, effort, and planning was put in to ensure the visuals and the audibles were produced as intended in order to reinforce the movie's underlying current.

When low budget, indie movies are done right with proper care and attention, with a vision and a plan, and with comprehensive, perfect execution of that vision and plan, provided you focus on the correct subject matter, you can put together a really, really great film. This felt fresh, it felt different, it felt intelligent. And all of that despite covering a subject matter that is a path well trodden. 28 Days Later - the film series - obviously preceded this by a number of years, and I got similar vibes from that and from Children of Men with this movie but not so much so that I felt it was a complete rip off. Instead it felt like a bit of a tribute, that it took the elements that made those movies so popular and entertaining and applied them to their own production. It is a very thoroughly explored subject matter, granted, and in that respect it didn't really bring anything new to the table but it did work well with that subject matter to create a fresh, alternative approach to it.

I really enjoyed this. Despite it going completely against my expectations. I was all set up for a silly, ridiculous B-Movie about a contagious disease where everyone makes stupid, irrational decisions for the sake of plot development and it has some kind of half baked moral message about "oh they should have done better" or something stitched into it, but there was none of that here. Instead it was a impressively produced, visually appealing movie about strangers in a horrible, inescapable situation that featured some outstanding acting and an engaging storyline. My only critiques being that the subject matter was a little over exercised, elements of the plot development were a little bit predictable, and it was a little bit short, clocking in at just 1 hour, 17 minutes. Otherwise this was really great and I would absolutely recommend this as a must watch for anyone into indie cinema. 4 stars out of 5.