A global pandemic originating in China wipes out the world's grass including grains such as wheat and barley. Facing mass starvation, the Chinese nerve gas cities and it looks like the British are planning the same thing, so a guy and his family flee London into the countryside heading for his brother's farm.
Like Lord of the Flies with middle aged English people, except the kids in Lord of the Flies didn't instantly drop their civilized facade.
The film seemed to have some seriousness of purpose at the beginning. They show documentary footage of starving African children. But it degenerates into an exploitation film. The mother and daughter are raped by motorcycle gang members and there are episodes of gun violence. They gather a larger and larger group of armed English people.
They're not the brightest people in the world, but I was surprised that a large motorcycle gang would fight to the last man for no apparent reward. Maybe it was like the auto race in On the Beach where drivers, knowing they were doomed, killed themselves recklessly until the last surviving driver won by default.
It reminded me of Panic in the Year Zero in how quickly the middle class family turns feral when they survive a nuclear war. Both movies are available now on The Criterion Channel's Postapocalyptic Sci-Fi collection.
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