Review: Ever After (EndZeit)

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020

Images from the Internet

Ever After (aka EndZeit)

Directed by Carolina Hellsgård

ARTE / Das Kleine Fernsehspiel (ZDF) / Grown Up Films /
Juno Films / MVD Entertainment

90 minutes, 2018 / 2020

www.junofilms.com

www.mvdb2b.com

You say you’re looking for something lighthearted with zombies along the lines of Zombieland (2009)? Man, you’ve come to the wrong Blu-ray. However, if you’re looking for a deeply serious Euro-centric post-Z-Apoc universe where everything is dire, well, have I got the film for you!

When the film opens, the Z-Apoc happened two years previously, and in Germany, there are only two barricaded cities left. In one (Weimer), that I think of as Republican, the zombies are shot on site with zero tolerance. In the second (Jena), which I envision as Democrat, they are working hard to find a cure. We start off in the former, and meet our central character, (dyed) redhead Vivi (pop and soul singer Gro Swantje Kohlhof), who suffers from severe PTSD from an experience as the munching pandemic virus took a bite into humanity. We see it in snatches of flashback. She’s withdrawn and nearly child-like.

Gro Swantje Kohlhof and Maja Lehrer

She manages to get out of Republicanville and meet up with fellow ex-pat Eva (Maja Lehrer), who is also running away after an incident. Eva is the opposite of Vivi in that she’s hard as nails and not exactly cuddly. They both decide to try to make it to the Democrat land by cutting through the Black Forest.

Along the way, Vivi befriends an older, mother-figure type (Tryne Dyrholm, who played the title role in 2017’s Nico, 1988). She’s a philosophical flower child who sees what is happening around the globe in a specific purpose as part of the natural world. Of course, we don’t really know what set off the Z-Apoc, whether natural or man-made, but it is all part of what nature is, according to her (I’ll leave most of her philosophizing for when you see it).

For this adventure, the zombies are fast, growl like beasts as their only verbal communication, and of course are ruthlessly vicious with no sense of their previous personhood. Like sharks, they’re mindless machines lookin’ for a snack of gristle and gore. An odd thing about that is even though there are some cringe-worthy moments, this is definitely not Fulci-like. It is more story-driven, so there is a dependence on character development rather than focused on shots of viscera.

There is also a philosophy that runs throughout, and that is to ponder what our place is in a world in which society as we know it is no longer strong enough to support us. Everyone seems to be searching for an answer to that, either directly or unconsciously.

In other words, while the zombies are fast, the storytelling mostly is not. There are thrilling moments where it’s do-or-die with Vivi and Eva against either single snackers or a group of them (or, horde, as the case may be).

Although essentially a three-person film, this is mostly Vivi’s story, and we basically see it through her eyes. It’s a world that is both harsh and beautiful as she mentions that one can see the stars again.

Despite the zombies roaming around snackin’, this is a very slow-moving film that makes Hereditary (2018) look like Mad Max: The Road Warrior (1981). This isn’t something you just pop in for a quick fun ride on a Saturday afternoon in your mom’s basement, this is a piece of cinema that is quite serious and deep, albeit that it keeps up the tension. I enjoyed it a lot, but it took some thinkin’ work to get through it all.

In German with subtitles, this picture is essentially a three-person piece, and except for the flesh eaters, all the main characters and most of the secondary ones are female. Director Carolina Hellsgård presents a bleak world yet filled with beauty, as I said, and takes us on a physical and philosophical journey that needs to be taken one step at a time.

The extras are chapters, sound choices, and two versions of the trailer: the original German and English. My one real complaint about the film is that although I’m happy to have the subtitles, they are pure white and small, and hard to read more than I would like, especially with a film this deep in its dialogue. Plus Vivi wears a white top and if the subtitles are superimposed on them, it’s damn near impossible to make out.

I’m not surprised this has won some festival prizes as this is the kind of film the serious viewers are itching for, rather than some found footage goofball release. With patience and thought, it’s worth a gander.