Mankind has always had a preoccupation with the end of the world.
The tradition dates back to at least Babylonian times, with The Epic of Gilgamesh suggesting a divine reckoning for mankind. The Hebrew and Christian Bibles are populated by imagery of the end of the world. Indeed, several creation myths posit that the world has already been destroyed several times over, a work in progress wiped clean so that new foundations might be installed.
Naturally, cinema has reflected this recurring obsession, revelling in the opportunity to depict the apocalypse on screen and with sound. The Danish film Verdens Undergang might be the first cinematic depiction of the end of the world, released in 1916, but there were a handful of examples into the thirties; La Fin du monde, Things to Come and Deluge.
This number increased significantly in the fifties and beyond, whether reflecting advances in filmmaking technology to more convincingly depict the end of the world on screen or driven by cultural concerns about the power unleashed by the atomic bomb. Modern audiences can point to any number of films depicting either the lead into or the aftermath of the end of the world; Doctor Strangelove, Planet of the Apes, Logan’s Run. The nineties even had duelling apocalyptic movies; Deep Impact and Armageddon both threatening mankind with the same extinction-level event.
As such, it is hard to tell whether mankind is any more or any less obsessed with the end of the world than they have been at any other point in history; after all, recency bias often leads audiences to assume that they are living through defining eras in certain genres and certain media. However, there has been an interesting shift in the kind of apocalyptic stories that modern audiences are watching. There are still familiar end of the world stories like Mad Max: Fury Road or The Maze Runner or A Quiet Place. However, there is an interesting subset emerging from within the genre.
On of the more interesting aspects of contemporary Irish cinema has been in watching Irish production embrace contemporary genre sensibilities in innovative and exciting ways. Irish cinema has performed phenomenally over the past decade, producing both prestige hits like Room and crowd pleasers like Sing Street. However, recently, certain strands of Irish filmmaking have shifted into genre storytelling in a manner that seems very much in conversation with international innovations and cultural shifts.
Black ’47 is a revisionist western film set against the backdrop of the Irish Famine. However, it very much exists in the context of a broader contemporary approach to the western genre. In particular, it uses the genre to comment upon colonialism and historical injustice, which is very much in the style of modern westerns like Django Unchained, Hostiles or The Hateful Eight. More than that, the film makes a point to lean heavily on horror movie tropes to underscore the monstrous brutality of its frontier setting, similar to the tone of The Revenant or Bone Tomahawk.
The Cured does something very similar. On the surface, writer and director David Freyne has fashioned a familiar zombie narrative. In keeping with the tradition that George A. Romero established in The Night of the Living Dead and continued in Dawn of the Dead, the feature uses its zombie outbreak as a vehicle for pointed social commentary. As with modern zombie movies like Resident Evil, [rec] or 28 Days Later…, the film frames its zombie apocalypse in pseudo-scientific terms with reference to a viral infection rather than any underlying supernatural cause.
However, The Cured also does something that radical with its zombie apocalypse, in that it suggests a thwarted apocalypse. It unfolds in a world that didn’t end on the outbreak of its viral zombie infection, known as “the Maze” virus. Somehow, civilisation endured. The United Nations intervened, suggesting that political systems are still operating. Ireland was apparently most affected by this outbreak, but even it still has a functioning class system and operating law enforcement apparatus. Not only have many of the infectees been cured, but there is also a system in place to ensure that they have to check in with military personnel to assess their reintegration into society.
Of course, this is arguably just an extension of the film’s central metaphor. The Cured treats its zombie apocalypse as an allegory. In some ways, the film is a companion piece to Michael Inside, Frank Berry’s rich social commentary being released in the same month. Michael Inside is the story of a young man who finds himself trapped inside the Irish prison system. The Cured feels like a metaphor for what happens to prisoners released from custody; the demands that society imposes on them while refusing to reintegrate them. Like prisoners released from custody, the eponymous reformed zombies find themselves cut off from the families and victimised by the system. In fact, the holding facility that houses the infected is shot and
Deep Impact
Black '47
28 Days Later
Bone Tomahawk
CinÉireann / April 2018 35