These Final Hours

It’s the end of the world as we know it and no one’s feeling particularly fine in Zak Hilditch’s These Final Hours, which follows self-absorbed James (Wolf Creek’s Nathan Phillips, subtly empathetic) through the last 12 hours of life on Earth.

There’s no stopping what’s coming; all anyone can do is make the most of their remaining time, and that could involve chillin’ with a jigsaw puzzle and a nice glass of wine or living it up at an end-of-days orgy where you can enjoy a round of Russian roulette if you’re so inclined.

First-time writer-director Hilditch, with invaluable assistance from some talented tech types (kudos to Emma Bortignon’s unsettling sound design and Bonnie Elliott’s scorched earth cinematography), creates an eerie, oppressive atmosphere for his story, a gauntlet of violent, degenerate behaviour that James runs en route to his friend’s farewell bash. But when he saves young Rose (the appealing, unaffected Angourie Rice) from a pack of pervs and resolves to return her to her father, he inadvertently rediscovers his humanity before everything goes up in flames.

These Final Hours has some potent ideas at its core, and Hilditch and his fine cast (including the gifted Sarah Snook) occasionally find piercing moments of heartbreak, horror and humanity amid the carnage. But the movie also struggles to find a consistency of tone, something that ultimately works against it.