The Divide

Its nihilism feels cynical rather than authentically bleak, and the increasingly histrionic scenes start to resemble an indulgent actors' workshop that has spun out of control.

The film's only point appears to be lurid delight in topping one atrocity with another.

The tale quickly degenerates from a dramatically promising clash of personalities under pressure to a gratuitous display of rape, murder, torture, dismemberment, madness, ugly misogyny, naked racism and yelling.

It's a rare movie where the most likable character onscreen, and the feel-good hero of the damnable show, is none other than the hardy cockroach.

In the end, the pace of the film is just too sluggish to maintain our interest and, at under two hours, it feels longer.

Delivers everything that horror fans might want from a post-apocalyptic thriller - rape, self-immolation, youngster harvesting, throat-slitting, more rape - everything, that is, except a reason to care.

Hits its stride in Act II, and once that moment has passed, you're stuck with one irritating slog toward a rather disappointing climax.

It isn't long before the plot and characters have nowhere left to go but down to the depths of human depravity. And by the end it's impossible to see the point.

"The Divide" is an ugly film, both visually and thematically. But it only really rubs you the wrong way if you take it seriously, which we can't imagine anyone would.

Whatever edge of fear and tension the movie might have possessed is traded for blistering annoyance as the cast near-cannibalizes one another while screeching at top volume for over 120 minutes.

Gens' film, while a far darker vision of the day the world ends, is more sexually sordid than satisfying. Save the humans? Why bother?

The Divide is extremely nasty and relentlessly bleak but it's worth seeing if you like that sort of thing.