These Final Hours - Australian apocalyptic sci-fi thriller

[Todd Tomorrow]

Last night I watched the 2014 Australian apocalyptic thriller These Final Hours and I'm surprised it has just disappeared after its Australian release. I much preferred this to the recent post-apocalyptic Oz thriller The Rover.

Earth gets hit by a meteor and Australia is the last country to be consumed by a firestorm which follows in the meteors wake. After Europe was the first continent to have been destroyed, Australia has 12 hours left till the fire storm gets there. Civilisation and the law have broken down in the run up to the disaster and people either kill themselves or they go to end of the world parties.

The lead character decides to spend his last hours at a huge party thrown by his girlfriend's brother to numb himself to the impending disaster with drugs and alcohol. When he rescues a lost young girl on the way there, his plan starts to fall apart.

The film reminded me of the Canadian indie film Last Night from 1998 which also is about the last few hours on earth before a meteor hits and in which the lead also decides to help reuniting the female lead with her family. But where Last Night (a film I love) often played the premise for whimsical comedy this film is more realistic and bleak. Considering that this was done on a very low budget, the film looks very impressive.

The film will be released on Blu-ray in Germany. Not sure whether it's going to get a release anywhere else. Despite getting good reviews and having been well received at various film festivals, These Last Hours didn't do well financially in Australia, so I suppose nobody else will pick it up, but it deserves to be discovered. I could see this becoming a cult film along the lines of The Quiet Earth or Miracle Mile and it's well worth searching out.

These Final Hours Official Trailer #1 (2014) - Nathan Phillips Movie HD - YouTube