By Keri O’Shea
It isn’t so unusual in cinema which deals with post-apocalyptic scenarios – whether the world has been destroyed by war, or zombies, or war which leads to zombies, or something else entirely – to see human friendships put under extraordinary pressure. As life goes to hell, relationships crumble, lifelong bonds are torn asunder, and cinema is there to explore what this must be like. You know what’s less common, though? A scenario where the world as we know it has come to an end, and the only survivors on screen…basically exasperate each other. They’re not at each other’s throats, they make do with the situation they’re in and they stick together, but boy, is it with gritted teeth. However, in any set-up like this, there’s space for development, and this is a film which delivers that in spades. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Battery – one of the most achingly-funny riffs on the zombie theme that I have ever had the pleasure to see.
Ben (director/writer Jeremy Gardner) and Mickey (Adam Cronheim) didn’t really know each other all that well before the walking dead put a dampener on things; sure, they played baseball together (hence ‘the battery’ – the pitcher and catcher – of the title) but they ‘didn’t really move in the same circles’. All of that has had to change, of course, and now they’re sorta stuck together. Just the two of them, they stay on the road, meandering their way through (refreshingly) rural spaces and never staying put for long. The funny thing is, Benny seems to be enjoying himself. Life has turned into one long summer vacation of camping, fishing and practising his catch. There’s the odd ghoul to dispatch, but out in the boonies it’s no where near as bad as you’d expect to get in a city. Yep, he can handle things as they are pretty well.
Mickey, though, isn’t taking it so well. He wants more out of life, and blocking out what’s going on around him with his headphones (including Benny’s relentless teasing) is only helping so much. So, when he picks up the voices of other survivors on a walkie-talkie he finds, he sees the chance to reach out and he can’t let it go. His wish for human contact sets the two guys on a certain path which puts an end to their long, hot summer vibe.
Let’s get one thing straight: a poorly-written version of this set-up would have sucked. No nice way to say it; it would have sucked. For the most part we have two characters doing all of the talking and occupying pretty much all of the screen time; this is no gore-fest either, with the zombies themselves usually acting as an underlying threat rather than a constant presence (and they certainly don’t fucking run). Without good writing, this would have been incredibly dull; as it stands, some of the best, funniest writing I’ve had the pleasure to experience renders this a truly engaging film. You’re instantly drawn into the world of the lead characters, feeling every atom of their frustrations and amusements as if you’re on the ground with them; this is surely helped by the fact that the two lead actors are also old friends in real life, so the chemistry is already there. This believable relationship allows the film to move into something else it does incredibly well, and that is to make the audience roar with laughter.
Humour in The Battery is sublime – the timing’s impeccable, the jokes all land, it’s subtle (well, mostly, apart from one scene so outrageous that the whole auditorium was in absolute pieces) and observational, having a lot more in common with pre-wanker Kevin Smith movies than (because the reference is always bound to come up somehow) Simon Pegg in terms of the style of the comedy here. That said, this isn’t just a straightforward comedy either, and again because it’s strongly-written, The Battery manages to do other things entirely come the time the credits roll. For one thing, the film makes some bold decisions. There’s a static sequence towards the end of the film where the cameras roll, if I’m remembering right, for eleven minutes; it reminded me of Night of the Living Dead in its claustrophobia, though of course that wasn’t a film where anyone described the groaning of the zombies as ‘soothing…like rain on a tin roof’. Still, I think it works because it adds a sense of ‘this is that people would do in a messed-up situation’, at least until they are absolutely compelled to do something else. And, after the wide open spaces of the rest of the film, this shows the guys coming full circle. I think it works.
So, it’s smart, funny and well-observed, but The Battery is also an unorthodox movie – not just an unorthodox zombie movie, but an unorthodox buddy movie too. It effectively merges the one to make the other; the zombie situation is almost contextual, but it’s the pressure cooker which creates a friendship. These two guys aren’t torn apart, they’re brought together; going from laugh out loud funny to poignant is a rare thing, but The Battery does it. On a shoestring budget ($6000) with a cast and crew of about five people, we find there’s still scope and perspective on the fringes of the zombie genre for brilliant storytelling. It’s not flashy and it’s not especially grisly, but The Battery is beautifully realised and innovative, and it will definitely be on my list of top films for 2013. If you don’t see it, I’m afraid we can’t be friends.