There’s nothing like an apocalypse movie to remind you how we’re always right on the brink of disaster. So many ways for the world to end, and so few ways to stop it.
But at least for right now, we’re finishing out 2024, still alive and kicking.
Provided the Earth keeps revolving around the sun for a few more days, here are four apocalyptic movies to help you ring in the New Year, no bunker needed.
Night of the Living Dead
Nothing says an apocalypse quite like a horde of the undead rising from the grave. As someone who hails very proudly from the Pittsburgh area, it practically goes without saying that this film is our town’s pride and joy.
It’s one of the original midnight movies, and it also helped usher in a whole new era of independent horror filmmaking as well as a new breed of zombie that’s still impacting the genre to this day.
From the frightful opening in a daylight-drenched graveyard to that nihilistic final scene in the abandoned farmhouse, everything’s pitch-perfect in
this movie, including the cast (Duane Jones as Ben is one of the great underrated performances in all of horror).
If you’re looking for even more zombie gore, be sure to add the sequels, in particular Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, and you’ve got a fantastic horror film marathon to carry you into 2025 with undead style.
Soylent Green
The setup is the typical stuff dystopian nightmares are made of: overpopulation and climate change have left America as an overcrowded wasteland where food is scarce and hope is even scarcer.
At this point in pop culture history, it’s probably not that much of a spoiler to use the most famous line of the film. Yes, Soylent Green is indeed made out of people.
But the thing that’s stuck with me about Soylent Green is less about the ingredients in the eponymous food; instead, it’s all about the so-called Furniture Girls.
In this world, because the elites rule everything, including every bit of extra space, they’ve established a very specific housing arrangement: the few large apartments in existence come equipped not only with literal furniture but also with women who serve as live-in mistresses to the powerful men who reside there.
Ever since the first time I saw this movie, I wanted to know more about the Furniture Girls; seeing everything from their perspective feels like it would make for a much more enthralling film.
It genuinely seems like there should be more of a cult following around these characters—they’re fashionable, they’re fascinating, and there’s a great deal of social commentary to be mined concerning their role in the story.
So if nothing else, let this article serve as my personal treatise to make the Furniture Girls a more recognizable part of the horror history landscape. In their apocalyptic wasteland, they’ve more than earned it.
Quintet
This film is typically billed as a science fiction movie with a heavy dose of drama, but that doesn’t get anywhere close to the deep levels of horror this film explores.
Directed by Robert Altman, Paul Newman stars as Essex, a seal hunter traversing a frozen tundra landscape during a new ice age. As the world becomes increasingly desolate, he brings his pregnant partner to meet what’s left of his family, only for tragedy to strike.
Determined to get revenge, Essex sets out to infiltrate a tournament of a strange game known as Quintet, which turns out to be more than he bargained for.
Even this description doesn’t do this film justice. From its beautiful, frozen sets (which utilize the former World’s Fair exhibit in Montreal) to its subtle but effective performances, this one will stick with you.
Be sure to make yourself a hot cup of tea or cocoa, though; as you’re watching these ice-covered landscapes, you’re going to need it.
On the Beach
Like Quintet, Stanley Kramer’s On the Beach isn’t a horror film by any conventional standards. That being said, it haunts me more than any slasher film I’ve ever seen.
Based on a 1957 novel and starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and Fred Astaire, the story is all about what happens after a nuclear war and how the fallout can be both literal and emotional. By the time the audience comes into the picture, nearly everyone in the world is already dead, and the fallout is slowly headed toward Australia, the last holdout of existence.
What follows is a meditation on grief, acceptance, and the inescapable reality that death will find us all, one way or another. The horror here is so subtle and so deeply devastating, as each of the characters copes with what it means to be dealing with the last days of life on Earth.
Look for Anthony Perkins in an effective and heart-wrenching turn as a loving husband and new father who has to face the prospect of there being no more tomorrows for his sweet little family.
