The Battery is a 2012 American drama-horror film and the directorial debut of Jeremy Gardner. The film stars Gardner and co-producer Adam Cronheim as two former baseball players trying to survive a zombie apocalypse.
Deep in rural Connecticut, the undead hoards roam the countryside whilst slacker-types Ben (Gardner) and Mickey (Cronheim) are at loggerheads as to whether to bunker down in a vacant property or carry on moving in an attempt to find salvation. With Mickey begrudgingly opting for the latter, they roam aimlessly through New England finding little but shuffling corpses but becoming increasingly unhappy with each other’s company. Ben is happy with the lawless lifestyle finding fun in taking potshots at easy targets, whilst his friend is far from comfortable with the situation, even being interrupted whilst ‘massaging’ himself at the sight of a particularly buxom ghoul. As tolerance grows to hate their journey is punctuated by the interception of a radio message which gives them hope of santuary, even if the humans they’re hearing sound far from friendly.
Less an excuse to shoot scenes of exploding squibs and desecrated corpses and more an examination of the frailty of the human condition, The Battery is more than a pleasant surprise, it’s the shot in the arm the entire genre required and many more experienced film makers had tried and failed at. For $65,000, you’d be tempted to grab a camera yourself when you realise such a film were possible. Widescreen shots of sun-lit New England eschew ho-hum scenes of nighttime raids and wait-for-it jumps, allowing the characters of the two to gradually seep into our consciousness. Mickey owes a debt of gratitude to Ben for saving his life but can barely contain his disdain for his gung-ho attitude and Neanderthal pot-smoking ideals, desperate to return to the simple chores of his old life. Their conversations are entirely believable and despite the outdoor settings, the claustrophobia is palpable, made all the more extreme when the film reaches its conclusion, with them trapped in the back of their rickety car.
Such is the care and thought behind the film, we are also saved the trapping of ‘found footage’ and faux shaky camera. Despite the tight budget, there is real beauty in the cinematography and with excellent pacing leading to a surprise and rather moving ending; all with essentially just two characters in the whole film. The recipient of several festival awards, this appears to have missed out on the deserved breakout and seems doomed to be seen in years to come as a lost classic.
Daz Lawrence
