The Survivalist

A post-apocalyptic drama as stripped-down as its title suggests, The Survivalist envisions end times in which each encounter with a new human entails a hard calculus of risk versus advantage.

A canny study of trust and loyalty.

The Survivalist is a spare, foreboding thriller about a near-paranoid thirty-ish isolate scratching a subsistence living in a Northern Ireland forest following the disintegration of organised society.

It is one of the more original post-apocalyptic films to be released as of late and is a curiously thought-provoking one at that, but its bleakness will not appeal to all audiences.

Fingleton proves himself quite the man for doing doomsday on a shoestring and taking his cast to some very dark places.

It's a lean, grim and perfectly assembled thriller, a little gem in fact.

It won't be to everyone's taste, but perky though it is not, it's a great piece of film-making.

A beautifully observed film about ugly human emotions and experiences, and a stunning example of how big a world can be sketched on a tiny budget.

Oppressive, unforgiving and cold to its core, director Stephen Fingleton uses the Irish landscape to evoke his thoughtful and terrifying dystopian vision.

Post-apocalyptic thrillers don't come much leaner or meaner than Northern Irish director Stephen Fingleton's gripping debut feature The Survivalist.

It speaks volumes through its silence and lingers in the memory for a long while after watching.