Instinctive Film has released a clip from its upcoming post-apocalyptic thriller, The Divide. The clip offers us a look at the first couple minutes of the film, in which residents of a New York high-rise find their way into a basement level during an apparent nuclear attack.
Interestingly enough, this clip didn’t give me the same the creepy vibes that I got from watching the trailer released back in October, but still makes it clear that things are going to get desperate. I mean, how much food could there be down in a utility room, after all?
The poster tag-line for the film is “The lucky ones died in the blast,” a rather ominous phrase which alludes to the obvious horrors of living in a confined space with strangers and limited resources.
Here’s that trailer, for reference:
Watching it again, I’m not sure I can see this one in the theater. I’m not a particularly squeamish guy, and I love post-apocalyptic science fiction, but this looks like a film that I’ll want to be able to pause and take a break from at points. sitting through 90 minutes straight of in-fighting, fear-based bargaining, and torture just sounds stressful.
The official synopsis for the film is thus:
In The Divide, nine strangers-all tenants of a New York high rise apartment-escape a nuclear attack by hiding out in the building’s bunker-like basement. Trapped for days underground with no hope for rescue, and only unspeakable horrors awaiting them on the other side of the bunker door, the group begins to descend into madness, each turning on one another with physical and psycho-sexual torment. As supplies dwindle, and tensions flare, and they grow increasingly unhinged by their close quarters and hopelessness, each act against one another becomes more depraved than the next. While everyone in the bunker allows themselves to be overcome by desperation and lose their humanity, one survivor holds onto a thin chance for escape even with no promise of salvation on the outside.
“Physical and psycho-sexual torment?” Ugh. At least the trailer shows us that it doesn’t all take place in that basement. When I first heard the synopsis for the film months ago, I thought it sounded like the whole of the film would be taking place in this utility room, and one-room thrillers just don’t feel like real films to me. It makes me feel trapped and claustrophobic, though I guess that’s the point sometimes.
The Divide is directed by Xavier Gens, and stars Lauren German, Michael Biehn and Milo Ventimiglia. It opens in limited number of theaters on January 13, 2012.
