Tuesday, July 11, 2023

The Battery (2012)

A pitcher-catcher duo (Mickey and Benny, respectively), try to navigate a zombie apocalypse together. At the time the movie begins, they've already been at it for some unmentioned amount of time, although we learn they spent 3 months trapped inside Mickey's house with his mother and sister at one point. Now they roam, on foot at first, later in some Subaru Benny finds with its undead driver still inside.

It's mostly the arc of their lives, day-to-day, and how they interact. Benny does most of the work. He leads, he does all the zombie killing (and apparently keeps a tally in a notebook), fishes, maybe cooks. tries to keep Mickey engaged by encouraging him to pitch to Benny or play catch with him. Sometimes it works - there's a scene of the two of them goofing off in an orchard, using apples for batting practice - and sometimes it doesn't.

Mickey retreats behind his headphones, a lot, in response to the realities of their lives. That's where the conflict lies. Mickey is tired of the nomad lifestyle, while Benny sees it as the only option. Mickey is hung up on old connections, but Benny never speaks of his past beyond things he and Mickey experienced since this started. Neither of them seems to have anyone else - the fate of Mickey's mother and sister is left unsaid - but they don't feel the same way about it.

A large chunk of the movie is the two of them trapped in a stalled car surrounded by zombies. The moans of the zombies and rocking of the car are a constant background noise, only going away when Mickey and Benny find some way to block it out. Mickey manages it at one point with the headphones, later the both of them get drunk and play rock-paper-scissors. It's an effective sequence, but it goes a little too long, especially the part where it's just one of them in the car.

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