The Quiet Earth (film)

""Zac Hobson, July 5th. One: there has been a malfunction in Project Flashlight with devastating results. Two: it seems I am the only person left on Earth.""

The Quiet Earth was a film created in New Zealand and directed by Geoff Murphy, starring Bruno Lawrence as a scientist who awakens in a hotel room to find himself the last man on Earth. The film was originally based on a novel by Craig Harrison, but bears very little resemblance to the novel's plot. While the film was marketed as a film about the last man in the world, the trailers did a good job of spoiling that particular plot point.

The film contains examples of the following tropes:
"Zac: I've been condemned to live."
 * Alien Sky
 * The Aloner: All of the protagonists qualify, at some point or another.
 * Alone in A Crowd: Turns into this for Zac, when the other two begin to grow closer to each other and exclude him (at least from his point of view.)
 * Apocalypse How: Very close to a Class 4, although a very tiny fraction of humans and other beasts manage to survive; vegetation is left largely untouched.
 * Big Fancy House: Zac lives in one for a while, once he realizes it's time to "move up in the world."
 * Book Ends: The film begins with a slow shot of a sunrise. The film ends with, well,
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * Cover Drop:
 * Cosy Catastrophe: At first Zac has a relatively easy time coping with the end of the world - drinking champagne in a huge mansion, filled with paintings and other finery that he collected himself.
 * Depopulation Bomb: The entire premise of the film.
 * Despair Event Horizon: Crossed by Zac early on, and in a big way. He gets better, at least temporarily, but it's a close thing.


 * Driven to Suicide: Subverted after Zac's rampage, when he attempts to eat his shotgun but doesn't go through with it, and instead manages to pull himself together.
 * Go Mad From the Isolation: Zac
 * Good Times Montage: Zac gets one early on, as he enjoys all of the pleasures that the empty world has to offer, including playing with both train sets and real trains and driving a new car through a shopping mall, and decorating a mansion with as many pieces of fine and expensive art that he can find. It gets worse, though, as the emptiness of it all  starts getting to him.
 * Insane Equals Violent: Zac's rampage once he snaps involves him threatening a life-sized crucifix with a shotgun as he rails at God, then destroying buildings with construction vehicles.
 * The Last Man Heard a Knock
 * My Greatest Failure:
 * Naked Apron: When Joanne serves Zac in the hotel.
 * New Era Speech: A passionate and teary example is made by Zac Hobson - resplendent in his chemise - from the balcony of his new mansion to an audience of cardboard cutouts and a combined background music/applause track.
 * No Name Given: Only Zac Hobson is given a surname. There are a handful of other named characters (Joanne and Api, as well as a corpse named Perrin that Zac holds a brief, one-sided conversation with) whose last names are never given in the film.
 * Playing Against Type: Bruno Lawrence was known for playing working-class roughs; he does a good job as a quiet, introverted, tormented scientist, but it isn't a role he would've been expected to play.
 * Rage Against the Heavens: Zac bursts into a church screaming, "If you don't come out, I'll shoot the kid!" The kid being a life-sized crucifix.
 * And he does shoot the kid, and after destroying a malfunctioning organ that keeps playing notes as he stands there, he declares that he has killed God and taken his place.
 * Sanity Slippage: The first third of the film shows Zac's slow descent into madness.
 * Scenery Porn: The countryside is almost a character in itself.
 * Scenery Gorn: There are quite a few scenes of the destruction that would be caused by the disappearance of mankind as well, including an airplane crash.
 * Survivors Guilt: Zac gets this in spades. Api and Joanne as well, although not nearly as much.
 * Token Minority: Considering the film's premise, Api may well be the only Maori left in the world.
 * Survivors Guilt: Zac gets this in spades. Api and Joanne as well, although not nearly as much.
 * Token Minority: Considering the film's premise, Api may well be the only Maori left in the world.