I tend to not review movies more than “ehhh. Meh. Hey! and “Must See”. Many people – when they review movies go directly to the technical. “His acting was wooden”. Others might comment on the action. Others the character development. With this movie, I’d like to try and treat it like an instructional video. Meaning, I’d like to present it as a “how to” video, of sorts.

This movie was made on a shoe string budget. This means movies like this need to be dialogue heavy, have bare minimum cast, and rely on dialogue to drive action and suspense.

Because of a particular background I have, I tend to obsess on things like the end of the world. It soothes me to go over this kind of stuff in my head 100 times a day. Account for bullets. How I would get to my Homestead. Preps I want to buy. Skills I need to learn. Do I have the right tool to lay cinderblocks? Do I have enough calories for me and my family for a long period of time? Do I have the right medical supplies? Often – I play over the technicals like this many times a day, and then my brain tends to short circuit when it comes to what is going to happen. Too many types of events to think about, and with this, I run into a feedback loop of sorts that has me jump to another topic. Maybe finishing the basement up there, building a metal building, etc.

For me – this was really of interest to me academically. In watching the dystopia future movies I do, there were specific things I was looking for. I see them, and I feel a feeling of ease, like I got a gold star for my answer on the quiz. Each of these dystopian movies have a different flavor on tech, government, and social interactions.

So with this, I wanted to comment on specific events and security items. What I noticed, how things might go down, what they got right, what they missed, etc. Again – the movie was done on a shoe string budget, so I’m going to overlook the back story of the girl who drew the mushroom cloud an hour before the event. Or a hurried/rushed love interest with teens. I don’t care about that stuff, to an extent.

Items of interest

Suburbs – the chimney guy in the movie, he is seen with his family at home eating dinner about maybe a week in. They are near the end of their food. The water doesn’t work, so the toilets don’t flush. The girl has to pee in the back yard. The father goes into the back yard with the daughter (with a baseball bat) and hears a neighbor being invaded by thieves and a gun goes off. He freaks because he thinks that they are coming for his family’s remaining food. In a hurry, the wife is like “we should get the camping stuff” and the husband is like “we will come back for it later”.

In this particular case, you see what my main issue with being in suburbia is. Houses are right on top of one another. In a grid down scenario, water won’t work to the house. My solar panels and batteries will keep my food cold in the fridge and freezer and I will have air conditioning. Of issue, all of my neighbors will notice, and with this, as everyone else’s fridge food spoils, others will want to come and take my stuff. Is it a man with 3 little hungry kids? Is it a goon squad of 10 armed men? In this case, the family didn’t stick around to find out. They left everything. It shows the fragility of suburban living and how in a atter of minutes, with no local police response, the neighborhood can go from peaceful and quiet to looting within 30 mins

Looting

While this low budget movie showed a glimpse outside of a supermarket what the looting would be like, it showed how if times get really bad, that people will run to the supermarket and just loot. Order breaks down. No police. No supermarket security guard. And – in times of real crisis, no cashiers. Who is coming to work if there’s a dirty bomb that went off in the next town over?

What this did was at least show you the level of panic many would be in, and perhaps how things can be escalated at these stores – with someone buying too much toilet paper. When COVID hit. I remember it being in mid-February, 2020, and I’m going to the supermarket and filling my cart every day, spilling over the top. People looked at me like I was nuts – I was following Chris Martenson who was covering this from late January. I had my preps, and by the time people then started to see what was going on – the stores were out of toilet paper.

From what I heard, a grocery store is fully restocked every 3 days, and the average person has about 3 days of food at home. Meaning, about a week in, serious chaos has been going on already for 3-4 days. As those with less food go to the grocery store, they will see more affluent hoarders buying everything up. This is your first fighting – lady takes too much toilet paper from aisle 6.

To me, it makes sense to have as much grains/canned food as possible. While I have perhaps a year of meet frozen, my “grid down” scenario has my stuff operating much longer than others.

It is only a matter of a function of time until your house in the suburbs is looted. Prior to that, any neighbor/friend will want to ask for food. How do you respond?

The above two scenarios point out the mental state of someone operating in a small town with no visible police department. It also highlights the need for you to have firearms and be capable of firing – as well as have older members of your family trained on firearms.

Inflation

One of the “technical” items people might bitch about is how the pacing of the movie may have jumped a few days or weeks, and it was clunky in this respect. But the radio guy also served a little as a narrator to tell the audience that inflation was up 15% that WEEK. This would essentially show you that as SHTF, people with stuff will sell it to people without stuff – for a STEEP increase in costs. Having cash around the house is key in early days. However, as the movie accurately pointed out – that as time went on, people got out of the USD and went to bitcoin and goldbacks.

Now, the movie did touch base on the fact that we were in a tad bit of a blackout everywhere. While I’m not going to criticize bitcoin’s slowness here, the objective truth is that in a grid down situation – the last thing I want to try and do is get my currency locked in an electronic device. I can sort of live with this blatant error because they did mention “gold backs”. The lead is also in a scene where he has a suitcase full of gold backs – which are a gold bill technology designed by Valaurum. My company has partnered with them as well and we now have our bills here . What that does is fractionalize gold into a foldable paper/plastic bill with that amount of gold in it. This allows gold to be “fixed” towards things. Perhaps like it should cost 50mg of gold for a dozen eggs. By having a currency (gold) that has a perceived fixed valued against things, this could be a logical way to slow/eliminate inflation.

Feeding people

When I saw the movie the first time, the wife (Dawn) goes to feed neighbors waiting by the gate. There are armed guards helping her, yet she is almost overrun by the crowd. I feel that well protected homes – it is reasonable to see people camped out, outside the fence, to rely on them for food. If you are friendly with the homestead owner, and have nothing but the clothing on your back – with 3 kids – you may be forced to beg.

In this scene, I feel like this captures most men in this country currently, today. many may feel like they can handle themselves. Maybe they need a bat. But this shows how someone who listened to “the man” was left alone, 7 days in, completely vulnerable to attack. When he comes into the house to get his wife, he’s like shocked “they have a gun!!”. This is, forgive me, a mindset of most liberal men in this country today. While they feel guns somehow are this device that magically kills people by itself – they also feel that under any and all circumstances, calling Barnie Fife will solve all of their 2AM problems. But in this character – you see the desperation of a man who was bullied out of his home by people with guns, and with this – a week into this journey he is a beggar trying to get scraps to feed his family.

I feel this captures three states of citizens here:

  • those who have preps and stocks of food
  • those who are scavengers – likely heavily armed – are convinced they don’t need to store things, because “they will take it from you”
  • those who sit by, waiting for the government to help.

In the last case – it then potentially turns 200 million Americans as dependents on the rest, immediately. The crux of any real sustained conflict is “10 meals”. I had seen in “The Silo” that if a man goes hungry for 10 meals, they will riot. Assume that’s just about 3+ days. Assume you have enough food for you, your wife, and your two small children for 90 days, and your neighbor is demanding food because he is hungry. Any food you give to him, you are taking from your children. I think Neil McDonough’s character captured this well.

In it, he had this chalkboard where he was tracking tons of food, calories, and people. In this, you hear how Neil mentioned he had “50 trained shooters” and “40 more family”. Overall, this is a camp of nearly 100 people. Think about the level of calories you are providing. If each person should have, on average of 2,000 calories per day, this means your camp must serve 200,000 calories a day for food.

You can see him struggling with the ethical dilemma of what to do. He cares about the people outside of the fence, but he made a commitment to those inside.

The growing of food

It seems the family has an orchard there. Early on, they were talking about making “peach wine” to preserve calories. At the end, the wife is picking grapes. They have greenhouses where they are making potatoes.

Anyone who has spent 5 minutes owning a back yard garden knows that things like raspberries can grow out of control. You might have a very small picking window for some things. Maybe lots of bees, beetles, or weeds. Don’t forget about deer eating apples or bear coming up on your food stash. Or the rats.

One scene where they were going over the logistics, they mentioned enough food to last them like 5-6 months, and after that, they would go hungry. Eventually, (spoiler) the chimney guy is brought in to make the bread inside of the greenhouse to make it at night to keep the greenhouse above freezing. It took a LOT of people with a LOT of different skills to pitch in.

There was also a scene where the security guys were then told that they need to work with everyone else growing food. It sort of showed how everyone had a job to do there. No one had a free pass.

I am also reading a prepper book, where in it, they suggest trading food for labor. Even if it’s hauling water from the stream to the house. Just giving people a little food may guarantee they come back again tomorrow for more food, maybe with more people this time. By letting people into the compound – many would see security issues and more mouths to feed, but the wife in this movie made a bet that the people were good people and contribute. It turned out, the chimney guy gave them the ability to grow food in the winter.

I liked how in this sense, examining the diverse skill sets of people might have the contribute in unique ways. Even if they are security and patrolling for you, or are on watch – extra people can increase the skills of a community, rapidly.

Leadership conflict

Many preppers just probably go to the same mindset as me. Finding your way to your secure spot. Armed to the teeth, and you will just shoot people mercilessly who trespass – because if you don’t, you assume they will kill you for food.

You could see at one point the Seal guy getting in the ear of the compound security lead – that they should be in charge. You know they are technically superior with defense, but Eriksson – a former Green Beret, correctly recognizes that they aren’t in an enemy combat zone, but are caught in a gray area between semi-governed civilization and martial law. He recognizes that the next day FEMA could come rolling in, and there could be consequences for doing something when angry. He stands down the idea of usurping the power of their benefactor, instead deflecting the hostility and trying to point out to the soldiers this isn’t Iraq.

What you see in this respect is a different offering than other Doomsday types of shows like the Walking Dead, where conflict and power struggles are sort of what drive the show. In this sense – there is almost like a loyalty mixed with “this guy is running 100 people, do we just turn these people into slaves”? Meaning, he recognizes his role there to support the security of the compound, not necessarily to challenge to be the governor, of sorts.

While also reading this “Bug in” book – it points out that there is a difference between a complete SHTF and this model of “any minute now, we may return to normal”. I believe the tension in this movie is the timing – where there is this balance of “no one is ever coming, the military should rake over” and “FEMA could be here tomorrow, let’s not do anything that will get us arrested, like killing cops”.

In a commune like this, it seems that each of these people have been able to find their cog in the wheel, and the SEAL in this case I believe is meant to drive the tension and the narrative to shift more towards a SHTF situation – permanently.

I feel like this leadership conflict could happen at any type of compound. Close quarters. Rationing food. Debate. Second guessing. Decisions to let people in or out. A leader in this situation can find themselves in a “no confidence” situation – depending on the level of shit stirrers you have in your squad.

To me, I felt Ross’ character here – liking his neighbors. Having faith in others. Organization skills. Friendliness. He exhibits traits of likability and – HOPE – there is a form of pastor needed in an end of days situation. Someone who is able to inspire and provide HOPE to others may give them the morale they need to persevere. While Eriksson could take out Ross in a blink – the film does a good job of Eriksson showing the struggle, but then also recognizing the commune NEEDS someone like Ross to guide them. As long as it doesn’t endanger his family, Eriksson is cool with the arrangement. But it does feel like it’s a bit of a short leash at times.

Rules of engagement

Eriksson, a former Green Beret – had a job of going to foreign countries and teaching locals combat skills. He is sort of the perfect guy to recruit to run your security. However, there are some times that he seems somewhat panicked – and it isn’t realistic.

Eriksson points out how you cannot have armed people within shooting distance. He is pointing out a truth here. But then he seems frazzled about what to do with trespassers. It’s as if you could see his team securing a perimeter around a forward operating base and anyone that got within 800 yards is shot at by a sniper. Ross points out “we just use a megaphone”.

First, Eriksson would know this, and it makes his character look like a dope. But it points out also a situation where the head of security didn’t immediately setup rules of engagement with “the governor”. You could sense frustration from Eriksson, but at the same time, these things should have been discussed well in advance. At the very least, there would be proper training given to his son about scouting and calling things in. His first day, he ends up killing a guy. Obviously Eriksson was yelling at his kid over walkie talkies to shoot!! Think about it, someone is pointing a gun at your kid, you tell him to shoot.

I felt this was great to touch on. Many people like myself may have 8 acres or so – but am 300 yards away from a neighbor, and if he had people patrolling, I could hit them with the AR iron sights. With my .308 I’m hitting them accurately at 500 yards. Anyone who was highly trained in the military is hitting 2x that distance. It’s also of interest to know that in end of times, maybe these idiots are out looking for a deer or rabbit and do not have a range finder – so they are using the rifle scope to look around.

You can see those hunters walking over a portion of the property where the “no trespassing” sign fell down. This is something also that Eriksson should have done better. Marking the perimeter better. Even if it’s purple spray paint on a tree – the security team here didn’t do a great job protecting the perimeter.

The “Bug in” book I’m reading is 240 pages long, and it is mostly meant for someone already at my bomb shelter. Not for someone in suburbia. But in that book, the guy is talking about razor wire and barbed wire. I am not sure he is of the mind of an ordinary citizen – where the hell do you even get razor wire? I did see how Home depot has it for $120 for like 1300 feet. I don’t even have a fence at the other property.

Perimeter security for my 8 acres isn’t really possible to be done with fencing. Ideally, I have some sort of 8 ft security fence all around the perimeter of the property. I once calculated that it’s about half of a mile to walk around the perimeter of my property. I just put up new 6×8 ft pool fencing. For 14 pieces, delivered, it cost me like $1100. That’s like $78 a piece, or maybe $10 a foot. For a 2600 ft perimeter, that is $26,000 for the fencing. Then I would have to drive all of these posts. Deal with hills. Add gates. Rent equipment. You are looking at $40,000 to put a perimeter fence, then several thousand in razor wire and barbed wire.

So maybe now this fence is $45,000. I am now advertising to any passer by that I have something behind this to protect. Whether it is guns, food, ammo, women – whatever it is, you aren’t allowed in. Barbed wire at the top.

So what then if someone gets over the fence. Or, brings a sawzall to cut through my pool fence. Or takes a chainsaw to it. What if we are 2 weeks in? Is this worth shooting someone over? Could them taking down part of your fence then create a greater security threat from a horde coming in there? What are the rules if someone gets over the fence? What if it’s 6 months in, and no government help came, would that make a difference? What if he breaks through and it’s him and 4 small children? Do you act differently?

I like how in this case, the movie accurately represents how there are gray areas. Each situation may warrant a different set of rules.

As a “security expert” I did recognize quickly how there was a fence and gates where vehicles could come in. Maybe the north part of their property is a mile long and there are no fences. OK. But if someone rolls up on you, in this case – they are funneled through a valley with fences. It’s a single ingress/egress point. Strong cover from a high position with overpowering fire power. It showed that ok – maybe you don’t need all of your property fenced. Maybe you can plant a lot of arbor vitae by the road and have fences/gates only at entry points. It forces vehicles into a very narrow area. Consider a truck of 15 belligerents who want to attack you. They aren’t highly organized, and come up in the truck. They are covered potentially by 1-2 snipers at a distance and a watch tower at medium distance. The gates could stop/slow them. If they then tried to force their way in, a small handful of trained personnel – with concealment and cover – with the high ground – with superior firepower – could overwhelm a small group within seconds. So the design of this was well relayed in the movie.

I like also how they wanted to get the 50 “shooters” who were trained at range shooting to be trained. As a former Green Beret, this was EXACTLY his job overseas, and might be the most qualified person to do this Ross could find. While someone like myself is “range trained” – they would do things like tactics to overtake fortified enemy positions. This also helps these people learn when to shoot, when to hold back, chain of command – and yes – rules of engagement.

It seemed Eriksson – in this movie – stuck his kid up on the hill with a sniper rifle and little to zero training at all about what to do with rules of engagement. As a former green beret, he would have trained everyone on this, and what to do if the batteries were dead in the megaphone. Also, perhaps checking the megaphone’s batteries prior to shift start. Hand signals. Morse code. Anything. Instead, he sends his untrained son up on top of the hill – which then leads to a predictable outcome.

So in this case, the movie took liberties. A former Green Beret would not have untrained people working out outpost – and perhaps have only a spotter scope rather than giving him the ability to kill someone.

However, the movie does a really good job of discussing rules of engagement – things you need to think about. You can have the fencing, razor wire, barbed wire – but if you do not have rules of engagement, you could kill a good dad or perhaps accidentally lead a marauder in with a trojan horse attack who will then let his buddies in later to take your camp. They haven’t spoken of how to detain someone yet, what to do with them while detained, and how to treat friendlies versus foes. At the end, Mrs. Ross lets in “friends” at the gate, but it’s a roll of the dice on “faith”. While it is an overwhelmingly uplifting message, just letting people inside of your perimeter inside the wire can lead to a lot of issues down stream.

Tesla

In the movie, a cyber attack takes out the grid. Simple to just explain it like that and not go into details. But with that, you don’t know if the power will come back on in 10 minutes or 10 years. Depending on the type of attack, it could be a software issue resolved – but it could have been a more serious issues with logic bombs detonating equipment at generator stations. There are pieces of equipment, that IF they go bad, a grid could be down for months, or even years. While it is important to have a strong grid, those who work in cyber (like me) also know of the millions of contact points, vulnerabilities, sourcing of equipment – it’s fragile, at best. I worked under the DoD for 15 years under US Cybercom, and briefly before that for the DHS with Social Security and Centers for Medicaid.

What the movie accurately pointed out, is that with a grid down situation, trying to “bug out” with a Tesla is a very, very bad idea. Gas stations along the way appeared to be violent places where people are fighting over gasoline – but in the movie, the concept of the power being down everywhere also made the concepts of charging stations moot. In the movie, they did have solar, which is key – and at night, the Ross’ daughter had candles going. In this case – Ross had solar, but didn’t have the Lithium Ion batteries I have, which store excess generation into Tesla Power Walls.

So the movie did depict the real problems that EVs would have in a grid down situation. It also missed how a guy who, by all measures, is a multimillionaire (Ross) – it also fails to show this guy would have bought batteries to store excess power in. While using candle light overnight is probably a better use than draining from batteries, it seemed that batteries just weren’t mentioned in here. For a guy who thought of a LOT, he didn’t think of the batteries.

Overall, I think that the concept of EVs is sort of silly when you talk about “grid down” and “bugging out”.

Wrapping it up

I feel like with “prepper porn” you get different angles of types of issues in society. “Leave the World Behind” for me was a masterpiece in “prepper porn”. But in that movie – there were ethical questions that began as perceived mild racism. Once they bonded, it became tribalism. You could see in that movie how tech was completely compromised. And – the Kevin Bacon character is the traditional prepper, where he is barricaded in, and “get off my lawn”.

In this movie, it addressed building cohesive communities that have a common mission of survival, but also have the undertones of spirituality, purpose, and hope. It discusses the concept of surviving on calories versus thriving as a community.

Of interest in this movie, the lead guy appears to have many millions, perhaps billions. The home is massive, and looks at first glance to be a 20 bedroom home. He had contracted Ericksson for security, and with this, appears he had a plan a long time ago to PRESERVE what he has.

And this is an interesting concept. The more you have, the more energy you may need to extend to preserve what you have. We all fantasize about the boxer millions lifestyle, with the $100 million fights and giant homes – but few people understand the upkeep of these homes. From many people to clean, to tons of landscapers, to contractors, water sprinkler people – it’s a small army just to maintain those places. It stood to reason that a billionaire understood that he needed security, but he also needed people to pick fruit, make food, tend to gardens, etc.

You then start to wonder how to build a community – after ruin. You sort of need a governor/mayor of your tribe. Perhaps a chief of sorts. Democracy can be used, in some cases. Perhaps there is a council who advises, and by a majority, the council can vote out the mayor/chief.

In this movie – there was also the local town codes officer, who wanted to inventory everything and seize it to re-distribute. I liked how it showed a functioning local police department with laws that are still enforced, to an extent. However, you start to then realize that laws within land borders may vary from the local town. The local town may be relying on hundreds of years of law, but each landowner – to an extent – needs to have martial law within their owned space.

You now have bigger conversations of security versus freedom. Do you give up freedoms to live within fences to ensure your security from outward threats? For how long do you trade this freedom? How long until people revolt?

This movie is turning into a TV series, and I believe this will more or less sort of be like the Walking Dead without zombies. The Walking Dead was spectacular for us preppers because it dealt with a lot of these security issues. Think about the genius of locking yourselves in a prison cell every night? If you turn, you cannot attack others. Locked doors ensures you can sleep with both eyes closed. Living in the town with the 20 ft high fences. You could see watch towers. Tunnels. Main gates. You could see that the most danger was when they were traveling. Going into peoples’ homes, not knowing if there were walkers or people ready to shoot.

There was also one scene in the Walking Dead – an established star had a very short cameo where she gave them a book on how to build a society. I had actually found a book like this for $120 last week. I might actually buy it – but the point was that simple skills like drinking water, rain water collection, keeping chickens for eggs/meat – many of these skills could be lost on society as a whole. If you think about being alone, you then have to do everything – build homes, get water, get food, make fires. Maybe if you are by yourself, this is doable. But having small children, this then becomes near impossible, and you need help. This is where community comes in. And – where you might see that people with children may be ideal for your community as opposed to military age aggressive males.

With that – consider in this movie, there’s a SEAL who is an asshole, that is overly aggressive. Ericksson is a former green beret, but delivers ethical questions about how to operate with kids around. Operate in the special forces type of operator-speak. You can see then how the SEAL might be sowing discord. How he wants to seize power. Perhaps enslave others for food. It then stands to reason that those with children want to have a cooperative to provide them food and security. At all costs.

The movie itself – maybe a 6. It’s at a 5.5 on IMDB and I think it’s unfairly knocked down a bit. Lower on budget. Some time issues. Some acting issues. But for me – the true enjoyment came from how it addressed a nuke going off the coast of LA. Travel. Food. Community. Logistics of storing/growing food. How to do security – with range, guns-gates-guards, training, and perimeter security.

I don’t know if the series is “must watch”. With the walking dead, there was “how did this happen, and how can we find a cure?”. With “Leave the World Behind” it was, “what the hell happened? Who did what?”. With “Silo” on Apple TV, you have “what happened 140 years ago. Why do they lie to people”. There is some form of mystery with the dystopian future that sort of serves as the Macguffin, if you will. IF the series just turns into some sort of power struggle and endless alliance issues – no one will care 3-4 episodes in. In this, they sort of teased how the girl saw the nuke attack an hour in advance. However, I don’t think that is a big enough mystery to hold an audience.

I think this could have been good as a “limited series event” which is what they now call a miniseries. For example, “The Day After” I just saw again recently. It had some of the nuke overtones, but the big questions in that movie were the basics of radiation. How to survive. What happens to water sources and food. How your soil might be shit forever. However, much of this is similar to how “The Day After” eventually ended – with Jason Robards eventually dying of radiation sickness and a zoom out of the devastation. In this type of story – you need to eventually restart government and ease back into a normal life – boring – OR pose the big questions and “fade out”, allowing the viewer to ponder the big questions. For example, the suitcase of gold backs – it posed a concept to the reader about storing some fiat in gold notes (like my company now makes). These types things can tickle the prepper mind. Give them more things to consider. However, I don’t see this series having a 7 year run. It might make sense to have 5-9 more episodes and it wraps up with a narration by the Mrs….

“It was two long years. Brutal winters. We lost a few people with sicknesses that would be curable, but we ran out of things like antibiotics. The local police force eventually disbanded and with this, our perimeter was tested numerous times by hordes of hungry, angry, military aged men who have obviously killed for food and gold wherever they went. If a family needed help, we welcomed them in. The grid was eventually restored, and with this, our government was re-formed. We had learned that during all of these events, assassins had also taken out 50 members of our leadership – essentially – everyone in succession was taken out in a 4 hour period. Communications had failed, and now that everything has been restored – people are slowly leaving our community now that jobs are coming back. We will be forever grateful to those who came to our community for shelter, and provided us family and security during our nation’s biggest test. It was our community. Our Homestead”

Fade out….