survival Movie list.

How did you hunker down during the Covid shut down? How did you spend your days in hibernation? Did you get that instinct for survival? Did you feel that primal protectiveness for your beloved?

I’m sure we all tapped into it even if just for a fraction. ‘I know I did ' More than just a fraction on my part. I had this undenying instinct to protect and provide for those I loved.

if this world as we know it is about to go haywire then I needed to have my family prepared for the economy collapse, this virus taking the lives of thousands with no warning and Possibility anarchy following behind.

Call me crazy but I did bubble wrap my children as best I could, my house, my car. I planned every meal using the minimalist of things, every product had a NO-WASTE rule attached to it ‘all the way down to the amount of toothpaste and soap that was used.

Panic buying had happened so fast I didn’t even get the chance to put my hands in the toilet paper snatching game going on. Then by the time I was able for forage for some toilet paper most of the food essentials were gone too, I couldn’t catch a break.

I have a family of 7 so bulk buying was always our way of shopping ‘So for the first wave we went very frugal. And we got by surprisingly easy.

during our shut down I came to realise the amount of waste we were making, a lot of unnecessary crap we were getting.

The means of surviving is way overstated, we don’t need as much as we think we do, we've become accustomed to living in luxury then When it’s taken from us we think ‘we’re screwed, until, you become tuned into your environment, Nature and that’s when it hits you.

You realise how blinded we have become, how much time wasted on the wrong things we think relevant.

Why do I not know any methods in preserving food? Why do I not know how to grow food?

My time was consumed with other matters i thought necessary.

Our lives are so busy believing in unnecessary things is necessary. We believe tissues are essential, makeup, politics, or that I need 24 flavours in my spice rack, the gym set I need to purchase next week, or that My child needs to learn how to spell encyclopaedia to pass her spelling test.

Honestly, I’d rather my child learn how to maintain the veggies they plant. That teaches resilience and persistence with fruits of rewards and not to mention a life lesson that’s actually needed, along with farming skill.

With this new inspiration Followed by the abrupt stop to the economy I decided my family and I will make positive changes to our lives and beneficial to the environment. So to start with my recommendation on what seemed most practical in achieving some sort of guidance in the right direction.

Let’s begin with

Doomsday preppers

So, we started a no waste regime and purchased a paper shredder, Paper and cardboard is shredded and put into the garden as Mulch, compost and into our worm farm. What ever is left we make little fire starters with it. Thanks to an episode on Doomsday preppers.

Lucky for us though before we did go into shut down we already had our vegetable garden in full functional conditions. ‘tomatoes, Zuchini, beans, cabbage, beetroot, just to name a few. We had also installed two water tanks for the dry seasons. Aiming towards a self-sustainable garden. (TICK) And What was left over was pickled and preserved.

Was this an easy process? “nope” I am far from having this gardening thing on point. I did wage war with snails, white flies, caterpillars, the sun, powdery mildew and my dog who kept digging everything up. I’m sure I killed more than I grew my first year. It was a constant trial and error.

When this pandemic hit my motivation and enthusiasm was in much need Of a boost to keep at it. So, here I am 'Still, trying to win this war I have in my garden which brings me to my next recommendation.

The biggest little farm

The biggest little farm is a documentary over 7 years of a family starting a farm in dire condition to a big self-sustainable one, and the journey is very informative 'Take notes.

Thanks, to our local library who let members loan out up to 30 items each before they closed shop. I did take advantage of that offer and collected all survivalist books and movies in stock.

• 101 ways to go zero waste - Kathryn Kellogg.
• Practical self-sufficiency - Dick Strawbridge
• Noongar bush tucker - Vivienne Hansen
• The Australia survival guide - George Ivanoff
• The new complete book of self sufficiency - John Seymou
• Don’t throw it ‘grow it - Deborah Peterson
• Hunting and gathering - Tim Macwelsh
• Back to basics
• the domestic alchemist - Pip Waller
• how to make jams, pickles and preserve - Cyril Grange

If you’re looking for the ultimate how to survive series, shows, movies, what best time to delve into it than during a pandemic. It just makes sense don’t it? For me it wasn't the time to take a holiday and relax and watch vampire diaries and home and away while destruction was looming over us.

We are not Australian citizens so our financial safety wasn't assured nor could we afford 7 passports and 7 flights and not to mention our animals. Relocation was a far fetched alternative.

We waited for Covid to wreck havoc in our area or anyone causing the next stages of its wrath and be out of work. Days turned into weeks followed my months then A year and still nothing, we were safe, So lucky for us work was booming, The meat industry was in flux.

Are we out of the woods?

I couldn't be sure of this, Covid was a fast and cunning enemy and had proven its undetected rampage a threat. It could at any given time bring the business down.

So, nope we still needed a contingency plan.

Back into the movies and books we went. which brings me to my next recommendation.

Man vs wild

by Bear Grylls

Bear Grylls teaches you an A to B, bug out, on the move situation where resourcefulness on the minimal goes along way. He battles with extreme weather conditions with a back pack of a few essentials.

Body Hack

by Todd Sampson

Todd Sampson shows the mind and bodies capacities during intense psychological, Physical predicaments.

manhunt by Joel Lambert

Former U.S navy seal has 24 hours to get to his extraction point before getting captured by professional hunters, skilled trackers and law enforcements. Joel has only a back pack of resources up agents the full brunt of each of these professions and their arsenal.

Naked and afraid

The colony experiment

And my personal favourite. 'The colony. Its about rebuilding a small-nit-community, they talk you through how to make gas using wood and making a gasifier to run a vehicle, how to make ozone to purifying water, electricity, building radios, being put in humanitarian situations, the list goes on.

We did immerse ourselves in as much survivalism as we could, practicing and camping out back, learning different techniques to purify water, by boiling it and using iodine tablets to distilling water and running it through sand and charcoal. We also pulled out our phones and maps to find water sources in our area and best underground water to even watching YouTube to teach us how to make a 1 man well.

We went for walks in bush to collect tinder to put in practice our primitive fire making skills, ‘FAIL. We tried naming as much plants and trees we could find which really wasn’t much but burnt grass as far as the eyes can see, quite sad really ‘you never realise how scarce it is out there and how much we don’t know about nature and what it has to provide. Knowledge that’s not widely prioritised on the social spectrum.

When all is corrupted it is nature that we will turn to. Reminds me of a poem that has never left the hippocampus part of my brain

‘When the last fish has been caught, the last tree has been cut down. When the last river has been polluted, the last animal has been slaughtered. Only then we will realise money cannot be eaten.

So, to begin our new purposeful more than ever perspective on life we started our more ‘thorough waste free journey.

We had verge collection in our area in march so we collected all the wood in decent condition and resources needed to build a chicken coop, if we were going to have animals why not invest in ones that’s beneficial, I couldn’t find a con that would overturn my decision in getting chicken, ‘there just are none. Chicken help with turning over the soil, bug control, fertiliser, eggs. Easy all-rounder pets and maintenance is not as bad if you use the deep coop method.

And then there is the book, don’t throw it “grow it, by Deborah Peterson. A book I would highly recommend. Re growing scraps into fruiting again was mind boggling, ‘I couldn’t believe it. We are living life wrong, if we are throwing away carrot ends and celery ends just to name a few, just pop it in water and watch it regrow then plant them back into the garden. Easy.

I couldn’t stress more how important it is to at least learn how to grow some sort of food and help reduce the Carbon footprint.

Which begs me to suggest the movie

The martian

by Mat Damon

Come on, if he can make water and grow potatoes on Mars. “what are we doing? I know this is a sci-fi fictional play on 'what if' you were to be stuck on mars with an expiration date on the packet food you have. The science used to make the things he needs to ensure his survival seems logic enough and casts the idea that just maybe life could be attained on mars, like Mat Damon says. “let’s science the shit out of this.

And my personal favourite…

Life of Pi

by Irrfan Khan, Suraj Sharma, Ayush Tandon

The 4 Award winning movie of 2012 with 11 nominations (best director, best Cinematography, best visual effect, and best original score.

After watching it 53 times I still can’t get enough of the effects, the pictures they captured are stunning I love the sound track. A-must-see movie of An Indian boy who finds himself stranded in the middle of the ocean with a monkey a hyena a zebra and a tiger. This movie is sure to pull at your emotions and play right in the pits of our humanity.

The Grey

by Liam Neeson

A Plane crash, survived, stranded in Snow and hunted by a pack of wolves and you best hope 'luck is on your side or you have a bank full of knowledge to resourcefully fight your way out.

book of Eli

by Denzel Washington

The Lorax

Dr Suess story

We can’t forget our future inhabitants ‘our children. Here’s one for them. "Lorax. An animation movie of what happened to the world after chopping all the trees down for materialistic things, fame, money. And then before you know it oxygen is sold in bottles and food is made from jelly, basically the world becomes plastic and polluted. This subtle informative movie sends just the right message to our littlies.

all is lost

by Robert Redford

Actions express louder than words can with this movie, a man goes out on a sail when he's fated with an accident and he's left to fight for his survival in the middle of the ocean.

“crawl”

by Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper

This is another cringing, hair raising, spine chilling movie, this tales a women who ignores warnings of evacuation during a hurricane in search of her father. who eventually finds him under the house then finds them selves trapped and trying to escape the rising water but little do they know what lurks under there with them.

cast away

by Tom Hanks (and Wilson.

This 21 yr old movie is still a winner in my movie list, its old but it still hits home. Tom hanks and Wilson belong here.

The Road

by Viggo Mortensen

A father and sons journey through an apocalyptic decivilized world. These can mess you up psychologically, pushing everything aside to ensure the survival of the children. I can only empathise by imagining my children and I going through this and I feel every emotion this movie portrays that terrifies me.

No Escape

by Owen Wilson

After our months long movie mayhem there was one movie that stood out to me the most. “Yes. Always those with children in them. After watching “no escape” and who knows if the collapse of the world goes into anarchy or not ‘maybe the government would slowly whack us out to prevent anarchy altogether. We just don’t know, so what then of my children if there was?

I’m not about to enable my children for a fighting chance.

New mission.

Self-defence, long range defence, and straight up buck wild fight or die. I knew a little of boxing from my boxing lessons few years back and the number of movies we’ve seen ‘we had it sussed’ and thanks to the mike Tyson’s coaching videos we dummies were pros overnight. What can’t you do though ‘when you have Google right in your hands.

”No point trying to retain much information, right? Because when the time is needed to need it, ‘you can just Google it.

Sometimes I ask myself

“why do I even read biographies when I have Google”

I still read though, call me old school ‘I’d probably prefer it. Studies have shown our brains are declining. Partly because of what’s mentioned above.

Anyway, we found a boxing bag on the verge. “repurposed (TICK) To start our defence teachings. We purchased 3 long range bows and made cardboard targets made from scrap material on the verge. And still to this day we practice precision, I don’t want to toot my own horn but hey “Toot, Toot”. My 2 eldest daughters are athletic champions 9yrs running, and I'm confident they'll survive a running match.

4 years and going in police rangers where they are taught self-defence and military style tactics, archery, air riffles, abseiling, camping etc and how to be a respectable member of the community. Army cadets for 1 year and I hope they gained something from it even if not for defence purposes.

Mission in progress…

Enough of that lets move on to our movie madness.

A Feral World

Love And Monsters

by Dylan O'brain

This apocalyptic comedy love story is not one to miss, heres one for our tweenagers with a flair of a dramatic love sick boy who searches for his long lost pre-apocalyptic girlfriend. O'brian's humorous commentating takes the cake on this one. it'll have you chuckling for days.

Greenland

By Gerard Butler

Warning! every situation these parents endure in this chilling movie might just be in every parents nightmares.

It’s funny how movies can make you tap into that urgency over drive. I was aware of this defence side of things and its importance when watching doomsday preppers 'years ago. ‘but I guess, then was just the idea of what I should do and not actually doing it.

And same goes about looking after our environment, I am so angry about what we’re doing to the planet and the amount of methane being produced, the Carbon footprint, the pollution, the littering and so on… and what am I doing? “nothing” just running my mouth with opinions of what should be done and what we should be doing and then waiting for things to change.

”Less talking, more doing”

During the Covid scare after getting equipped of what I thought was necessary I turned my attention to medicine, my daughter has asthma and my son is anaphylactic and if you can remember, all the Ventolin in Australia was out "how was I going to save my children? ‘I thought.

Thanks to Google I searched for an alternative for each of their medical conditions if it were to flare up and had no access to medication. Most suggestions were not proven but Lignosus (tiger milk mushroom) is your best go to for asthma but unfortunately, it’s very hard to find even if we were in the country it was grown in.

So, we have to resort to practising breathing techniques. And as for anaphylactic goes 'your best bet is to stock up on epi pens and steroids and avoid at all cost the very thing that causes it.

But on the other hand, we did manage to learn how to make anti-stress tea, antiseptic mist, hyssop cough syrup, turmeric honey antibiotic and more thanks to the domestic alchemist from pip Waller.

Okay so the question that was risen repeatedly and What we all really wanted to know.

'what can we do to protect ourselves from covid-19 other than just covering ourselves with PPE?

Our Immunity, How were we to develop a strong immune to fight off Covid-19 when eventually we are exposed?

My man Google can help you out in a more sterilised approach. For me though, I have always given my children them extra vitamins for health and development growth, up to date on immunisations. But I also let my children play in the dirt and eat the sand roll in the grass, climb the trees and play with spiders and suck it up if you get bitten, poke at animal faeces and flick it at each other, swam in green or muddy water's. You name it they probably done it.

Immunity is gained through exposure of. What if we are stalling evolution maybe we are supposed to slowly transform to fit the new Eco system geared by mankind’s handling. We can’t expect to stay healthy if we can’t keep our Eco system healthy. We only need to look at history.

Which bring me to suggest the movie…

“mad max, fury road”

by Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron

After years of the collapse of civilisation Joe, the leader of their fortress the Citadel is outrage to find his healthy women, that were being held captive for reproducing purposes have escaped his torment in hopes to find the green place only to find it perished.

and...

2067

by Kodi smit-Mcphee and Ryan Kwanten

“Apocalypto”

by Rudy Youngblood

During our journey of evolving to the occasion education has been in the front and centre of everything that’s introduced, pro's and con's thoroughly thought of.

Engineering had been introduced to my eldest son and I’m sure as far as The Colony experience has proven, engineers are quite handy to have.

I have always read books and mostly I would go for thriller, fantasy, or crime, the odd biography here and there, educational. But lately even my choice in what I feed my brain is thought of.

I stay away from fictional stuff unless it has a relevant story line relevant to what I think is relevant in guiding my family and I in, even if not a guide but a new perception, or better understanding of a situation at hand or the past. Basically anything relevant for our inventory mentally and physically to ensure our survival and some.

Movies however we watch them all.

We are now well into 2021 and Covid has barely scratched the surface here in WA and I am still preparing for a wave. I don’t excessively empty shelves at my local shopping centre but I do now stock pile on relevant things to carry us through such events as a pandemic, economy collapse or anarchy and not to mention our fire escape plan. Even if we don't survive I really do hope that my efforts caters to and helps someone get to the next garden of Eden. I don’t believe I am the slightest ready for it but I am preparing. "Are you?