The trapped cast of THE DIVIDE (Anchor Bay Films)

Like nothing so much as The Diary of Anne Frank aggressively mashed up with the [REC]/Quarantine films (with a side order of Sartre’s No Exit), The Divide might make for a dynamite stage production—and the kicker is that its cast is so good that you’d probably want to see it in front of the footlights.

The problem, of course, is that Xavier Gens’s would-be shocker is not a stage play. So while you’ll want to applaud the director’s ambition to craft a thinking person’s descent-into-savagery horror/sci-fi thriller, the result is a too-long and too-talky exercise in overreaching pulp. At its heart, though, there’s a lean and engaging B movie with some interesting psychological overtones, and it clocks in at about 85 minutes. It’s unfortunate then that the actual running time is 121 minutes, the difference made up of regularly occurring scenes that seek, somewhat transparently and none too originally, to build characterization and establish various relationships. The Divide is apparently screenwriters Karl Mueller and Eron Sheean’s first feature, so again the tendency is to be generous by noting their attempts to dress up the siege-movie material with more serious themes. The result, though, is groaner-level dialogue and, in my case, some restless clock watching.

Which is probably the worst thing one can say about a film that clearly aspires to being an absolutely riveting post-apocalyptic tale. The plot, which sees a motley group of survivors holed up in a fallout shelter after a nuclear attack, is refreshingly straightforward, and the filmmakers’ decision not to open up the action or setting by including various flashbacks and dream sequences is another creative move that one respects. Indeed, for those who haven’t seen or read more masterful dramas about the disintegration of civilized values (Lord of the Flies), nor groove to more extreme, more transgressive fare that explores our species’ dark side, The Divide might land as a very nice compromise. Equal parts harrowing and humanistic, it certainly has the potential to please audiences that might balk at on-screen torture but don’t mind a bit of (mostly implicit) degradation and the occasional chopping up of a corpse.

For me, the chief pleasure was the performers themselves. The always-solid Michael Biehn takes on a particularly un-vain role as the owner of the shelter who resents, but deals with, the intrusion of outsiders (most notably Courtney B. Vance) into his domain. Showing an even greater absence of vanity is Rosanna Arquette, who undergoes quite a transformation over the course of the story. In some ways, it’s not quite believable, but I put the blame more on the script than Arquette. As the lead, Lauren German is fine in a part that I wish had been fleshed out more, but the real standouts are Milo Ventimiglia and Michael Eklund, who give intense performances that make me look forward to seeing them on screen again. Yes, at times things verge on camp, and that doesn’t flatter any of the actors, but there are also certainly moments when they manage to transcend the predictability of their character arcs.

Am I dwelling too much on the actors here? Maybe. But remember, while you’re watching The Divide you’re trapped along with them—so you better like them.