Homestead is an end of the world as we know it movie. Since it is from Angel Studios, I expected and received a movie with an uplifting message for our future if we have to rebuild a society. The base for the homestead is a well prepared estate in the Rockies. The owner comes to terms with the same issues that all prepper groups have already entertained. The details of the ending were not what I was expecting but as I said, it was an uplifting message.
This movie is not a doom and gloom, apocalyptic descent in chaos. While it does cope with the details of survival, there is no sex, foul language or major bloodshed. This movie also is the basis for the “Homestead” series on the Angel Studios website.
After 16 years of doom and gloom forecasts, I do not know of one prepper group that has survived this period. I have personally come to the conclusion that a community based approach is more practical but any success will come down to one factor: morality. And faith is the foundation for a moral people.
That compound on the hill is impressive! Imagine if we all could afford a multimillion dollar bunker like that, or the one that (((Zuckerberg))) the Traitor has purportedly built in Hawaii?
Our chances for survival would be, not assured, but immeasurably improved.
We’re headed for the worst parts of the Bible.
I haven’t seen the movie, but I certainly will.
Putting a large number of people from various backgrounds together is a tricky venture, to say the least. It is especially so if the effort comes after the disaster that draws them together in the first place. Issues such as how to divide the responsibilities, how to divide the produce of their efforts, and how to deal with the internal rivalries within the group will need to be reconciled. Dealing with external threats will be extremely important.
About the only example of groups who have survived over the millennia with an “all for one and one for all” model, on in which all assets are shared evenly is monasteries. Their “higher purpose,” the very basis of their existence, is the glue that held them together. Utopia-oriented societies, whether based on Marxist communism or on oddball personality cults always fell apart because they failed to control human envy, jealousy, and competition within the group in the long haul. (Query: Just how many hippie communes from the 60s or 70s remain functioning today?)
Yet, if the world has turned into a feral landscape post-nuclear holocaust, the chance of a family surviving alone would be very low, depending on the intensity of the suffering from one area to the next. Those who propose “mutual assistance groups” of a few hundred people in a community fail to explain just how these would work when one family has run out of food in two weeks, and others will not run out of food for two years. The cohesion of the group will be stretched to the breaking point after some individuals have tightened their belts three notches, and others are using toothpicks to pry out bits of Mountain House Beef Stroganoff stuck in their teeth.
(“Fun Fact:” In the Yukon Gold Rush, prospective miners who landed in Skagway, Alaska, took the Chilkoot Trail into the Yukon. You may have seen photos of men climbing an almost 45-degree incline in the snow while carrying huge packs. At the top, Canadian Mounties were waiting for them. Any man who did not have a year’s supply of food was ordered to go back and get more. The reason for this is that the Mounties understood that a man who ran out of food would turn to desperate measures to survive, and this often meant robbery, thievery, and violence. Interestingly, the Mounties had no legal authority to support this policy. Common sense supported it, however.)
All of this is why the best chance for surviving a major, society-bending disaster would be in a “off the beaten path” group of, say, 30 or 40 individuals at most, and one weighted more heavily with adult males. There is a fundamental truth in the old saying, “There is strength in numbers.”
A moral society is the only one that can survive. Our founders said as much on numerous occasions which is why I’ve stated several times here that we cannot coexist with the left. They are nothing short of demon possessed.
I saw the movie last night (pirate site BTW). And it was a good movie for the budget (medium to the high-end of low) with some recognizable talking heads in it. And speaking from a ‘screen writer’s” point of view (yes, it’s true)--it was a decent script with good plot points, except for the family that got separated at the beginning of the movie--who’s story was not necessary.
Sorry for the spoiler here. The husband turns up late to the survival party--and turns out to be a head-case who forgot his meds. And they weren’t needed at all in this film.
The Spec-Ops guy and his family (mixed race for some reason) is the real action of this film. And his teenaged stepson cannot fathom the severity of the situation would be typical. And the situation the kid faces in the pic would be realistic of what would transpire.
The ‘main survivalist’ who’s house resembles that of “Hearst’s Castle” is also a realistic, do-gooder type of character who’s allowed his OPSEC to got to pot. And there’s a scene where an adversary is allowed to walk straight into this guy’s ‘inner-sanctum’ cache of weapons and survival equipment is just unbelievable--then he let’s the man walk out without being capped. Also unbelievable--but this film is from a Christian-ish perspective as it is from Angel Films in Provo Utah, which I believe has Mormon-ish kinda’ people backing up the organization. They also released “Nefarious” I believe which has a deep Christian-ish tint. Been there at Provo during my BYU days.
The ending is a let’s hold hands, everyone love each other despite the world going to pot, all the neighbors banging on the gates for food and starving and local police goons rolling up to confiscate everything… completely unrealistic. Because the Spec-Ops guys who the Survival Sugar-Daddy brought in to protect the massive estate would in real life have smoked all the uniformed thugs (possessing an insane arsenal including 30 cal WWII era Browning machine guns) --and never let the adversary out of the inner-sanctum (seen earlier) leave alive in the first place.
I would have attacked this story with a slightly different bent--with the Survialist Sugar-Daddy being the ‘let’s kill-em all’ and let God sort them out’ and having the main Spec-Ops guy being the voice of reason and right-minded organization. I’d keep Sugar-Daddy getting shot as seen in the film, but this triggers his transformation, rather than his wife being the catalyst of change at the end. I’d have made her the evil force behind the Sugar-Daddy. BTW--the actress playing Sugar Daddy’s wife is the same chick who played the evil lawyer on Yellowstone who got whacked in the last season. So she could play evil very well.
I have a movie pitch I’d like to lay on Angel Films soon. But since my literary representation took a dirt nap last year, setting up a meeting with any type of prod-co is problematic. So if any one from Angel Films is reading this--they can contact TPTB behind NCrengades--who has permission to release my email to them.