Forgive Us All is not your typical post-apocalyptic horror film. It doesn’t rely on cheap jump scares or CGI spectacles. Instead, it digs deeper — into the bones of grief, the brutality of survival, and the lingering question of what it truly means to forgive in a world that has lost all mercy.
Set against the awe-inspiring and mercilessly isolated wilderness of New Zealand’s South Island, this debut feature from director and screenwriter Jordana Stott is a genre-blending triumph. Fusing neo-Western ruggedness, psychological horror, and philosophical introspection, Forgive Us All offers a strikingly original entry into the canon of post-pandemic storytelling — one where the most dangerous battles are not with the infected, but with our own memories.
🧠 Plot Summary: A New World and an Old Pain
The film opens in near silence. Snow crunches underfoot. A rifle is cradled. A woman watches the valley below.
Her name is Rory (played with devastating nuance by Lily Sullivan), and she has survived the unthinkable. Years after a violent viral outbreak has reduced much of society to cannibalistic madness, Rory has carved out a solitary life in the highlands of Queenstown. But she is not whole — haunted by visions of her lost child and by the echoes of a society that failed to protect its most vulnerable.
Her reluctant peace is shattered when a stranger stumbles into her territory — bloodied, infected, but not yet turned. His name is Logan (Callan Mulvey), and he brings with him not just danger, but a message — a final plea for help from a surviving resistance faction fighting the authoritarian regime known as the G.M.A. (Global Military Authority). This is not just about survival anymore. It’s about making a choice: hide in the mountains and let the world burn — or return to it and risk everything to save what remains.
The story escalates slowly but purposefully. Rory’s isolated existence is soon interrupted by new arrivals: a band of survivors led by the enigmatic Otto (Richard Roxburgh), whose philosophies on leadership and loss directly challenge Rory’s closed-off approach to trauma. As tensions mount between these characters, the infected continue to grow in both number and complexity — no longer mindless monsters, but seemingly evolving predators that reflect the horror of unchecked human instinct.
🎭 Cast & Performances: Stillness Meets Strength
⭐ Lily Sullivan as Rory
In what may become her career-defining role, Lily Sullivan delivers a masterclass in controlled emotion. Her portrayal of Rory is fierce, quiet, and utterly lived-in. There’s no theatricality to her grief — just wounds that never fully close. Her every decision, from pulling a trigger to sharing a campfire story, feels hard-earned and deeply human.
⭐ Callan Mulvey as Logan
A physical and emotional counterpoint to Sullivan, Mulvey’s Logan is a man who wears the weight of the world on his weathered frame. He’s not just a catalyst for the plot — he’s a portrait of a different kind of survivor: one who believes there’s still something worth saving.
⭐ Richard Roxburgh as Otto
As always, Roxburgh commands attention. Otto is complex: part prophet, part tyrant, and entirely unpredictable. In many ways, he represents the film’s central moral question: At what point does survival become cruelty? His exchanges with Rory are electric — cerebral chess matches laced with real danger.
Supporting actors — including Dean O’Gorman, Bree Peters, Lawrence Makoare, and co-producer Lance Giles — round out a tight ensemble that emphasizes realism over melodrama, grounding the apocalypse in quiet moments of care, fear, and mistrust.
🎥 Visual Language and Production: Nature as Antagonist
Cinematographer Peter McCaffrey turns New Zealand’s Rees Valley and Ben Nevis region into more than just a backdrop — he makes it a character in itself. The film’s aesthetic leans heavily into natural lighting, wide static shots, and slow camera pans that evoke a sense of ancient dread. The mountains are beautiful, but uncaring. The forests are lush, but never safe.
There’s a deliberate visual contrast between openness and claustrophobia. Exterior shots give us sweeping relief, only to be immediately followed by tense interiors where breath hangs in the air and footsteps echo with menace. The infected — designed with practical effects and minimal enhancement — are grotesquely believable: more akin to ravenous humans than fantasy zombies.
The sound design enhances this tone with surgical precision. Composer Brandon Roberts delivers a score that creeps and coils, often fading into ambient silence just long enough to make your heart pound louder than the music itself. This is not a world of chaos — it is a world of waiting.
🧬 Themes: Memory, Redemption, and the Violence of Forgiveness
While marketed as a horror-thriller, Forgive Us All is far more interested in the psychology of grief than in jump scares. It asks painful questions:
- Can you forgive the world for what it took from you?
- Can you forgive yourself for surviving?
- When redemption is offered, are you brave enough to accept it — or too broken to try?
Through Rory’s arc, the film interrogates the cost of emotional isolation, the trauma of motherhood lost, and the impossible choices made when the rules of civilization no longer apply. The G.M.A. subplot adds a layer of commentary about power filling the vacuum of crisis, touching on themes of authoritarianism and moral decay — but it’s never preachy. It simply shows what happens when order replaces compassion.
🎬 Conclusion: A Devastating and Beautiful Debut
Forgive Us All isn’t a thrill ride. It’s a slow-burning, emotionally intelligent descent into the darkest corners of the human experience — and it’s all the better for it. With raw performances, breathtaking cinematography, and a script that respects its audience’s intellect and empathy, Jordana Stott has crafted a remarkable debut that elevates genre filmmaking without abandoning its grit.
This is a film that will haunt you long after the credits roll. And like its title suggests, it doesn’t just ask for understanding — it demands it.
⭐ Final Rating: ★★★★½ (9/10)
Bleak, beautiful, and unflinchingly human. A triumph of indie genre cinema.
Directed & Written by: Jordana Stott
Starring: Lily Sullivan, Callan Mulvey, Richard Roxburgh
Genre: Neo-Western / Post-apocalyptic / Horror Drama
Runtime: 93 minutes
Country: New Zealand
Release Dates: May 2025 (NZ/AUS); July 11, 2025 (International VOD)
Distributed by: Rialto (NZ/AUS), Reason8 Films (International)
Rating: R16 (Violence, disturbing content, thematic intensity)
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