It remains pretty tough to come up with a new spin on zombie horror. Good on directors Ben Howling (wait, Howling??) and Yolanda Ramke for deciding the missing ingredient is emotion. In “Cargo”, Martin Freeman learns that the end of the world may be his very last chance to be a father, and the Australian outback is providing the perfect, most terrifying audition.
Freeman and his wife are trying to provide for their infant daughter along rough terrain made worse by a dangerous virus infecting the innocent. While they seek the typical eden that everyone in a zombie movie pursues, mom is bitten, and it becomes that familiar conflict: are we gonna kill mom? Or is mommy gonna eat us? And, of course, can mommy stop believing that this isn’t a big deal? Before long, it’s Freeman and kid, mastering the wastelands.
From then on, it’s about trying to survive while meeting a number of faces, including famed Aboriginal actor David Gulipili. Of course, some of these episodes along the way are familiar – this guy has good intentions and this guy certainly doesn’t! Etc. Eventually, Freeman stumbles on a married couple, an aggressive husband and a considerate wife. This dynamic is far more than meets the eye, and it becomes a risk. Is Freeman saving his daughter’s life by staying with this couple? Or do they keep going?
All of this is boilerplate stuff. But visually, the movie never dulls, never provides any time to shrug off the visuals. And the weight of the drama comes from how the zombies and the terrain and the general hopelessness all come secondary to the bond between this man and his child. Early on in the film, there is hope he will preserve this family. But by maybe the halfway point, it’s certain he is no longer interested in this now-distant idea of family. It’s not necessarily a suicide mission, but it’s certainly about one man providing for the future of his child, above all else. You don’t see many movies about the sacrifices of fathers – for many reasons you can debate, I’m sure. But this is certainly one of them.
The “fake relationship” between the husband and wife stuck with me. Pretty much everyone in prison has some sort of fake relationship. When we end up in prison, it’s a rush to see how many members of the opposite sex we can reach via mail or email. And if any show just the slightest bit of kindness, if any return communication, guess what? That’s a girlfriend. And if they send photos? She’s going up in the locker.
Many guys use this idea to extend beyond this, into their smartphone usage. Found a girl on Plenty Of Fish who wants to fool around tonight? The guy’s got a glow for the next week. For that girl, it’s the time they dared to fool around online with a man behind bars. But to the men, it’s the realization they are desirable, and now they have a woman on the outside waiting for them. Of course, they don’t, and some find out the hard way. But that one bit of attention, even when stretched into a lie, is often what keeps these men going.