Cargo– A simple and straight forward story of a family trying to survive a pandemic in Australia. While the cause is never covered, it’s a zombie-like virus that is spread by being bitten. Once contracted, a person has about 48 hours before they transform completely. In just a few hours, the first terrible symptoms start. Andy and Kay are traveling with their infant daughter and after making a misstep, Kay is bitten. From there it is up to Andy to keep his daughter safe. Andy is played by Martin Freeman so he’s the immediate draw. He’s great in this, a father doing everything he can to keep his family safe. This reminds me of The Road as it’s a bleak story in a minimalist environment with few characters. I like this kind of stories, where people are pushed into tough situations and have to make major decisions that can mean life or death. The “what would you do?” angle is a fun thought experiment. This isn’t a scary movie, maybe a bit more if you have children, but it’s a well done if unoriginal survival tale that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome at 100 minutes long.

The Night Comes for Us– This isn’t a horror movie, but the level of gore and violence push it in that direction. If you like the two The Raid movies, you are going to want to watch this right away. Ito is a gangland enforcer, a stone cold killer in a group called the Six Seas. So deep in the Triad world, a person can never get out of such a position by simple means. After a brutal mission overseas, he can’t take carnage anymore and he defects. Once home he’s sucked into an insurrection is his Triad family and all hell breaks loose. He and his remaining friends are constantly being attacked and they must take extreme measures to protect themselves as it’s killed or be killed. The story is kept simple, with a few screens of text at the start to give the background set up, then you meet the main character and it’s off through almost two hours of straight mayhem. Brief pauses in the action set up the next action sequence and it’s some of the wildest and most vicious fight choreography around. This one is solely for action fans, dig in.