Post-apocalyptic movies and dystopia shows have been very popular in recent years. Some are pure fantasy and designed to merely entertain.
Yet some have settings and scenes that can get your mental wheels turning in the right direction as you continually refine your prepper strategy.
Now I’m not going to tell you that there’s a single spot-on end-of-the-world movie that you need to treat like gospel. Yet, there are a few cherries to be picked from this fruitful tree that might inspire the ways you prep for whatever is to come.
I Am Legend
I think every prepper should watch the movie I Am Legend, to get a better understanding of just how beneficial it can be to have a good dog living at your side.
I admit to being a bit biased here. My own dog is the product of a German shepherd guide dog and a golden retriever field-bred hunting dog.
At home and in the woods our connection is the same, or better than Dr. Neville and Sam in the movie. Not to mention the mental health benefits of having a good dog at your side in tough times!
I Am Legend also shows the importance of having backup transportation and fallback plans for when things go wrong. As well the importance of being aware of your surroundings and how conditions change. Like the time of day.
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The movie also exposes some potential faults preppers should note. For instance, Dr. Neville only has one hardened shelter. He doesn’t have any sort of safe house or secondary location he can hole up in an emergency. He simply has to trust that he can always get back to his home by sundown, from wherever he is in Manhattan.
The Book of Eli
There are some great themes and essential lessons for preppers to note in the post-apocalyptic movie The Book of Eli.
One of the central themes is the preservation of knowledge.
Something that will become increasingly important the longer a worldwide disaster lasts.
It also gives you a good understanding of how perceptions shift. You hear this in quotes like “We threw away things people kill each other for now.” Today there are a lot of things that get disposed of very easily, that we would save during a disaster situation. The Book of Eli might inspire you to think about what other things in your life you can reuse or upcycle.
The Book of Eli also shows the importance of situational awareness and physical fitness. These are things we often underappreciate in our modern world. Throughout the movie, we’re left half-guessing if he’s truly blind and impressed by his physical fitness.
In the real world today, sub-par physical fitness is the number one problem I see when I go on a wilderness retreat with other people. When a crisis strikes, the first few hours and days are critical, and you end up on the back foot, if you’re sucking wind when you could be stepping up to an opportunity.
A Quiet Place
There are a lot of small survival lessons for preppers to consider in the end-of-the-world movie A Quiet Place.
Yet the one that I think the one that needs to land the hardest is the importance of noise discipline.
In the movie, the alien predators are highly noise-sensitive.
When they hear a noise, they hunt it with relentless effort. Thus forcing human beings to change how they live and communicate.
In a prolonged disaster, there’s going to be a lot of people bugging out of their homes and shelters. Even long after the initial wave of people fleeing urban areas, there will still be those who wander the open road.
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Some will be innocent people who ran out of resources and searching for new ones. Some will be roving gangs of thieves and criminals looking for things to exploit.
If they hear your generator, at a distance, or hear you arguing with your kid, they’ll come your way. Maybe not directly. They might scope out the area, listening and watching. Casing your sheltered area to see what you’ve got, and how they might take it from you.
Working out simple hand signals that you and your family members can use will go a long way toward being able to communicate when silence is needed. Emphasizing the importance of “Using your inside voice” with your kids, even when you’re outside is also important.
You might also want to think about some of the things in your prepper survival plan that will make noise. Would solar panels be smarter than a generator? Do you really need a rooster in the hen house? Maybe your old farm truck deserves a new muffler, and you probably should make sure you have some 22-subsonic ammunition in your arsenal.
Station 11
While technically a cinematic limited mini-series Station 11 an art piece and a statement about how an individual’s psychology can change as they adapt to an end-of-the-world pandemic.
Station 11 does a great job of showing how the mindset of different individuals changes in a post-apocalyptic world.
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It also highlights the adaptability of children, as opposed to adults who are still locked into their notions of comfort zone.
One of the main characters, Kirsten starts as a child who loses her parents. Throughout the series we see her ascending and adapting. Often developing skills and mental resilience better than the adults helping her.
When the story flashes forward to her as an adult, we see an extremely capable young woman. She’s a mentor to children younger than her, a star performer, and an absolutely lethal fighter. She also shows off some impressive knife-throwing skills.
We also see Jeevan and other adults, developing the skills and willingness to break out of their comfort zones. Through the process, they struggle with their ego, mistakes caused by dropping their guard, and their inability to know when to trust and when not to trust strangers.
There are also some strategic survival components on display in Station 11. Not the least of which is the use of a minefield that is removed and replaced again. Even when the mines aren’t there, the community still leaves up a sign as a deterrent for strangers who might be planning an attack.
The Road
The Road is a 2009 movie that does a great job of showing the kind of resourcefulness and mental resilience it takes to survive after the end of the world.
It’s based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy which focuses on the relationship between a father and son, their differences in mindset.
Here again, we see the psychological growth of a child as the son goes from being very innocent to gradually ascending to an adaptable, resilient mindset. Meanwhile, the father struggles to maintain a sense of hope while grappling with the regret of past failures. He also wrestles with the ethics of survival at any cost.
This is a very realistic approach for the kind of choices individuals will have to make in a post-apocalyptic world. Especially if you find yourself unlucky enough to have to bug out, without a close-by safe house or reliable permanent shelter.
The paternal character ultimately struggles to let go of the things he cannot control. There are several moments where his regrets weigh down his survival efforts. Other times his ill-defined moral compass causes him to hesitate to make critical decisions in key moments.
This underscores the importance of making a mental inventory before disaster strikes. Understanding what your priorities are, and what you’ll do to maintain or achieve them is critical after the collapse of civilization.
The Road also does a good job of depicting basic survival skills, and the importance of foraging and scavenging. Not to mention the very real threat of dealing with injuries and illnesses without access to proper medical care. Before SHTF, add these 10 medical supplies to your stockpile, as they will be the first to disappear in a crisis.
End-of-the-world movies like The Book of Eli, The Road, I Am Legend, and others each have their own setting and plot elements to learn from. Once you filter out some of the creative twists, there are some good lessons to add to your mental inventory.
In all of these post-apocalyptic movies, we see how different characters handle the collapse of civilization in their own way. This might help you reflect on the potential pitfalls you might face, and the success strategies you might need to adapt to the changed world.
Reflect on how the people around you might react in an end-of-the-world scenario. How might your children adapt differently compared to the adults in your group? How can you prepare for this and what techniques might help keep everyone on the same page?
These end-of-the-world movies also depict a wide range of survival skills in different environments. You might tap into some depending on your location. If you won’t be able to escape an urban environment, you might want to focus more on I Am Legend. If you’re planning to bug-out into the wilderness with your family, the movie The Road might have more for you to learn from.
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