'The Survivalist' Trailer: John Malkovich Rules The Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

Forget Being John Malkovich. This October, you'll be fleeing John Malkovich. 

Let's just hope everyone hasn't already fled the reading of this article after that terrible pun. In The Survivalist, Malkovich stars as a gang leader who's out for the blood of a young woman, played by Ruby Modine, daughter of Matthew Modine. This sets him on a collision course with an ex-FBI agent (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in a post-apocalyptic action thriller that is bound for release this October.

"A year and a half after the fall of civilization due to a viral outbreak ..."

That's not some future headline, but rather a movie logline, or the beginning of one. The title of The Survivalist refers to Meyers' character, who will defend his property at all costs. He's got a house guest and she's somehow not affected by the disease that has wiped out the government and left the streets ravaged.

"It's going to be a long night," he says dramatically. The Survivalist looks like a cross between The Purge and Home Alone, which I guess makes it Straw Dogs? Check out the trailer for it below.

Under different circumstances, The Survivalist might be dismissed as a simple home invasion thriller, but with its pandemic plot and vision of a war-torn America on the streets outside, it has some clear parallels to the last year and a half of real-world news. We first reported on the film last December, with producers Jordan Yale Levine and Jordan Beckerman talking it up as "an exhilarating, timely and action-packed feature film with stellar performances."

This first trailer allows you to get a feel for the movie's overall tone, and as our own Chris Evangelista predicted, it's sometimes hammy. There's at least one funny reaction shot with Malkovich bugging his eyes in a Nouveau Shamanic, Nicolas Cage kind of way (keeping in mind that Malkovich and Cage co-starred in Con Air.) What's even more amusing is how the trailer splices together lines that spell the story out in dialogue:

"You come to my house...you try to kidnap this girl...and then you try to kill me?!"

"There are five of us...there's one of him!"

The Survivalist is directed by Jon Keeyes and it also features the acting talents of Lori Petty and Julian Sands. Here's the full synopsis:

A year and a half after the fall of civilization due to a viral outbreak, a former FBI agent is forced to protect a young woman immune to the disease from a dangerous gang leader hunting her for her blood.

The Survivalist hits theaters and all digital and VOD outlets on October 1, 2021.