The Divide (2012)
Average Rating: 4.1/10
Reviews Counted: 46
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 34
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 3/10
Critic Reviews: 16
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 15
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.8/5
User Ratings: 5,361
My Rating
Movie Info
In this graphic and violent, post-apocalyptic thriller, nine strangers-all tenants of a New York high rise apartment-escape a nuclear attack by hiding out in the building's bunker-like basement. Trapped for days underground with no hope for rescue, and only unspeakable horrors awaiting them on the other side of the bunker door, the group begins to descend into madness, each turning on one another with physical and psycho-sexual torment. As supplies dwindle, and tensions flare, and they grow
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Cast
-
Michael Biehn
Mickey -
Milo Ventimiglia
Josh -
Lauren German
Eva -
Rosanna Arquette
Marilyn -
Courtney B. Vance
Delvin -
Michael Eklund
Bobby -
Ivan Gonzalez
Sam -
Ashton Holmes
Adrien -
Abbie Thickson
Wendy -
Jennifer Blanc
Liz -
Andrew Degryse
Hazmat -
Derek Poplawski
Hazmat -
Sean Skene
Hazmat -
Richard Thomas
Hazmat -
Alan Castanaga
Tenant -
Shannon Guile
Tenant -
Jacqueline Loewen
Tenant -
Seun Olegunju
Tenant
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The Divide Trailer & Photos
All Critics (46) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (34) | DVD (1)
The film's only point appears to be lurid delight in topping one atrocity with another.
Top CriticThe tale quickly degenerates from a dramatically promising clash of personalities under pressure to a gratuitous display of rape, murder, torture, dismemberment, madness, ugly misogyny, naked racism and yelling.
It's a rare movie where the most likable character onscreen, and the feel-good hero of the damnable show, is none other than the hardy cockroach.
In the end, the pace of the film is just too sluggish to maintain our interest and, at under two hours, it feels longer.
Delivers everything that horror fans might want from a post-apocalyptic thriller - rape, self-immolation, youngster harvesting, throat-slitting, more rape - everything, that is, except a reason to care.
The only possible relief from director Xavier Gens' abusively bleak survivalist scenario is how implausible it is.
A clunky and ugly little film that I was more than happy to forget.
A genuinely disturbing descent into madness. You just happen to have seen it all before.
A genre film that's both a little too long and a little too brutal for mainstream tastes ... a minor cult movie, beloved by a few discriminating connoisseurs of small-scale apocalyptic horror and pretty much ignored by the rest of us.
A nasty, efficient film that makes the imminent end of life on Earth seem like the judgment of a wise God.
Michael Biehn and Rosanna Arquette are in the cast but not helped by a cursory screenplay.
One to avoid.
No one has any goals other than to be the most annoying person in the room and there's plenty of competition in that department. It's a waste of a good setup as the situation and location are well drawn.
Gens's skilful direction and the throat-grabbing performances from the cast add to the tension.
It is all rather unremittingly grim. Like watching one of those elaborate 'Seventies social behavioral experiments designed to illustrate how crap human nature is.
Nasty, unrelenting and likely to make your hair fall out.
Gens' impressively grim film has points to make about post-9/11 militarism, but you get the sense that humanity disgusts him so much he'd rather leave his characters to the roaches.
There's plenty of septic green and bilious brown in this basement, but fortunately no black and white.
this uncompromising, unapologetically unpleasant addition to the post-apocalyptic subgenre invites us, along with Eva, to bear witness to the end of everything that we take for granted and hold dear, with all sentiment and hope forever locked out.
THE DIVIDE aims for a dark, cutthroat tone, focusing on exploitation elements without the thrills that are usually involved. The result is both extremely dismal and extremely uncomfortable.
It's not a film for everyone. Heck, it's not a film for anyone, yet underneath the oppressive atmosphere of this insistently nasty movie are a few persuasive scenes of panic set against a terrifying doomsday scenario.
The characters might be suffering from claustrophobia, but the audience is most likely to suffer from boredom.
If it's possible to get bored with derangement, The Divide finds a way to make that happen.
Audience Reviews for The Divide
Super Reviewer
Survivors of a nuclear attack are grouped together for days in the basement of their apartment building, where fear and dwindling supplies wear away at their dynamic.
REVIEW
The Divide begins at the instant a nuclear missile hits a city. Some occupants of a building run into a basement and hide from the carnage. From this point on these survivors begin their descent into a hell of their own making as madness and primal aggression take hold. This is a pretty unpleasant film to tell you the truth. The levels of degradation that the people in the bunker resort to is fairly grim. Physical, verbal and sexual violence all manifest themselves as these survivors lose touch with their humanity. They are not a particularly nice bunch of people to begin with, so this does pose some problems for us as an audience empathizing with any of them. Nevertheless, the film does generate quite a bit of suspense and there are some very unpleasant moments of nastiness. So it does work in a brutal in-your-face kind of way. And this is the movie's chief selling point.
While the setting is almost exclusively limited to the bunker, there is one unusual moment where one of the survivors is able to exit the confines of the building and come briefly into contact with the enemy. It's a very bizarre sequence where the mysterious bad guys appear to be storing children - one of which they earlier snatched from the bunker - in incubators. The children look either dead or blinded. It's horrific and utterly strange. Immediately after this the mysterious enemy weld our heroes back into their bunker and are never seen again. After this point the microcosm of the bunker just goes from bad to worse, as some inhabitants go mad and others sadistically insane. Overall, The Divide is a nasty movie with a very pessimistic view of how life in these extreme conditions will play out. If you like apocalyptic films on the more grimy and violent side of the spectrum then this is one to see.
Super Reviewer
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Great Film! The performances felt real. The mood was perfectly dark and doomish. This post-apocalyptic take on humanity is not the most positive, but it is positively one of the bests! The cinematography and few special effects are good, especially for the budget. The story with its sci-fi elements briefly introduces a world of wonder, before shutting the door closed on hope and humanity. It is saved by sparkles of effective comedy, but transgresses into a struggle to survive at any price. What is there left? Humanity? Dignity? Love? Compassion? Not really. As dark is it it, this vision hopefully encourages us to do better in our own lives. No need to wait for a nuclear explosion to figure out what is our desired behaviour for betterment. Totally worth watching!!!
In this graphic and violent, post-apocalyptic thriller, nine strangers-all tenants of a New York high rise apartment-escape a nuclear attack by hiding out in the building's bunker-like basement. Trapped for days underground with no hope for rescue, and only unspeakable horrors awaiting them on the other side of the bunker door, the group begins to descend into madness, each turning on one another with physical and psycho-sexual torment. As supplies dwindle, and tensions flare, and they grow increasingly unhinged by their close quarters and hopelessness, each act against one another becomes more depraved than the next. While everyone in the bunker allows themselves to be overcome by desperation and lose their humanity, one survivor holds onto a thin chance for escape even with no promise of salvation on the outside.