Forgive Us All (2025) - Review
A Neo-Western Horror with Stunning Visuals and Flawed Logic
🎭 Genre: Neo-Western Horror
📅 Year: 2025
🎭 Top Cast: Lily Sullivan, Callan Mulvey, Richard Roxburgh
🍅 Rotten Tomatoes Score: Critics: 22%, Audience: 71%
⭐ IMDb Rating: 8.1/10
Synopsis
In a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a virus that transforms humans into deranged cannibals, a bereaved mother, Rory, seeks solitude in an isolated mountain cabin. Her grief is interrupted when a wounded stranger arrives, bringing with him a glimmer of hope and a vial of a potential cure. As they confront external threats from a totalitarian regime and internal demons of guilt and redemption, choices made could mean salvation or doom.
Spoiler-Free Review
“Forgive Us All” is a gorgeous, frustrating little bastard of a film.
On one hand, it delivers some truly stunning cinematography—Queenstown looks absolutely ravishing in the apocalypse, like the world’s most scenic zombie brochure. The Western-style aesthetic works, the colour grading is consistent and moody in the best way, and the thematic blend of grief, guilt, and desperation is almost profound. You can feel what the filmmakers were trying to say.
But on the other hand? Holy hell, the character decisions will have you gnawing your knuckles in disbelief. People ignore wounds, leave horses behind, wander into zombie-infested forests at night with the survival instincts of damp toast. The logic gaps yank you out of the immersion just when you’re about to care. It’s like watching a beautiful violinist who occasionally slaps themselves in the face mid-performance.
⭐ ⭐⭐⭐🧟♂️🌫️ (3/5 zombies that remember how doors work)
In-Depth Review: “Forgive Us All” – A Visually Stunning Yet Logically Flawed Journey
This movie is beautiful. Like, dangerously beautiful. The kind of beauty that makes you forgive a lot of sins—until those sins keep ramming into your skull like, I don’t know, a zombie who learned how to use a hammer.
Let’s start with the good: Forgive Us All is one of the most visually stunning films I’ve seen in a while. The cinematography is just lush, and the color grading is so well done it could’ve had its own character credit. It’s shot in Queenstown, and I knew it immediately because, hello, I live here. Yet, weirdly, the film never actually commits to saying whether it’s set in New Zealand or Australia. They lean heavily into Aussie-western aesthetic—wide-brimmed hats, dusters, horseback chases—but the terrain screams Southern Alps, and if this was Australia, someone would’ve mentioned the heat. Or spiders. I should know, I used to live there too.
We start with Rory. She’s burying someone. We don’t know who yet, but grief is dripping from the scene like sap. It turns out that her daughter is infected, and Rory has locked her in a room (from the outside) like she’s housing a vampire.
We watch, with Rory, as this sick, panting child turns full zombie, lunges, and Rory has to end her. Absolutely traumatic, and a strong, sad opening. Then we time-skip forward a couple of years, and things really start rolling when a man (Noah) is being chased through the woods by three dystopian fascist cowboys. We find out he’s been shot, has broken out of the city with a vaccine, and meets up with his brother Lockie who decides in the moment, “Yeah, I’ll stay back and die while you, the guy bleeding from a bullet wound, go run across the mountains.” Make that make sense.
I mean really, this glaring choice right off the bat really rubbed me the wrong way. Obviously at this point we didn’t know what exactly they’d stolen from the ‘camp’, but the fact that it was so important that they risked their lives for it, and the healthy guy decides to stay behind while the bleeding-out guy has to go on is just stupid. Sorry, there’s no way to sugarcoat that. That’s a stupid fucking decision. When we learn the purpose of their mission later on, it becomes a REALLY stupid decision.
Noah should’ve been the one to stay. Period. Bleeding, shot men don’t outrun horses. Lockie dies for literally nothing. The bad guys catch him, torture him with a cattle prod (because we need to be 100% sure Logan is a Sadist™, I guess), and then kill him.
Thanks for your service, Lockie. Hope you enjoyed your pointless death.
Meanwhile, Rory’s attempting suicide by the river—understandable, given her circumstances—when she finds Noah’s horse. Then she finds Noah. He’s got a gunshot wound but no obvious zombie bite, and a dragonfly charm on his bag that reminds her of her dead daughter (Matty was all about those dragonflies). She takes him home. Good decision. Then immediately makes a bad one: she puts him in the barn, locks the door, and doesn’t treat his wound. Like, at all. Just drags this unconscious, bleeding man home to… admire him in the hay? Girl. What?
Otto, Rory’s father-in-law and MVP of this whole movie IMO, is out hunting rabbits and stumbles across a body eaten to the bone, showing us what these zombies do. He spots some GMA agents (side note: I think that’s the acronym, I might have missed a letter), and immediately wants Noah gone. Totally fair. Dead son, dead granddaughter, now a strange wounded man in your barn? I’d want him gone too given the climate of our zombie infested landscape.
Rory finds the vaccine in Noah’s pack. Otto doubles down. He’s like “there’s a storm coming, the zombies swarm at night, let’s not be idiots,” while Rory, bless her, is being swallowed alive by guilt and grief and just kind of… wanders through it all glazed-over.
I understand her grief and guilt, but I feel like they push it so hard it paints the picture of the inconsolable emotional female, which rubs me the wrong way a bit.
What follows is a cascade of “what the actual fuck” decisions that make it hard to root for anyone (except Otto, he’s my boy). Rory decides to go to the barn in the middle of the night (alone, obviously) because the horse is being noisy. Not only is this peak horror movie behavior, she doesn’t even check on the wounded man through the fencing before unlocking his stall. Rookie mistake, my girl. She walks in, and SURPRISE! He jumps her. With a bullet wound. Sure. Very agile for someone with a gaping chest injury.
Then a zombie sees them through the window and—get this—doesn’t try to break the glass. No. This zombie opens the barn door like it’s clocking in for a shift at Woolies.
Are these zombies intelligent?
Do they have problem-solving skills? Because if they’re smart enough to pick doors over windows and retreat when shot at (which he does), then humanity should’ve been wiped out years ago. Instead, this one runs away after being nicked by a bullet, which is new behavior and raises more questions in my mind because it doesn’t seem to fit this landscape.
Only after all of this chaos does Rory go, “Oh yeah, maybe I should pack your wound now.” Still doesn’t check for an exit wound though. Despite it being common sense. Despite the fact that we, as the audience, can confirm there is no exit wound—because Noah’s lying on his side when she finds him, and there’s no blood on the back of his coat. How does nobody think to check this? Everyone’s acting like basic first-aid knowledge died with civilization. These kinds of silly mistakes really bother me in these movies. I really wanted to LOVE this film, but these poor choices make it hard and the lighting and scenery might not be enough of a redemption arc.
Later, Noah reveals he broke into the city to get the cure for his son, who was bitten two days ago. Cool. But if time is that crucial—if you’ve got 72 hours max to administer the vaccine—wouldn’t your first question upon waking be: “How long was I out?” He never asks. And by the time Rory even starts heading to deliver the vaccine, it’s definitely past the 3-day mark.
Continuity be damned, I guess.
Outside, Logan and his bootlicker posse are watching with heat-sensing binoculars. (Are those even real tech? Maybe? I don’t know. I write fiction, not military manuals.) Logan is pushing them to march forward despite the zombie-lurking night. It somehow takes them ALL NIGHT to reach Rory’s place. Must’ve taken the scenic route.
Otto wakes Noah up with a gun to the face—finally, someone acting logically—and they argue. Then Noah starts struggling to breathe, and Otto stabs him in the chest to relieve pressure on his lung. He didnt’ even check which lung was suffering.
I don’t know the accuracy of that either, but Otto says he’s risking two major arteries, so at least the film acknowledges it’s dangerous. Still, confusing, medically speaking.
Then their techy surveillance system alerts them to the incoming posse of GMA folks. (I never saw any solar panels so where is their power coming from to run the computers? Details, people.)
We finally get a plan (Otto makes the plan) for him to stay behind while Rory and Noah take off. Rory was very insistent on saving this boy, and Otto, bless him, accepts that this is something she needs to do - even after trying to tell her that what happened wasn’t her fault. That this boy isn’t Matty.
He’s got her back.
He’s my guy.
Otto is the best part of this movie. Grizzled, competent, has big “don’t waste my fucking time” energy. He looks badass in his vest and wide-brim hat, and he sasses Logan like he’s been itching for a shootout. I want a spin-off about him.
They escape. Otto dies horribly. Logan shoots him and then electrocutes him to death for fun, just in case you didn’t hate him enough already.
Scout, the only semi-decent member of Logan’s crew, decides she’s out. We think she might help Otto, but we never see her again. No closure. Nothing. OK then, I guess.
Then comes the part where logic packs its bags and moves to a different movie.
Noah gives Rory a bottle of zombie blood to smear on herself as camouflage. It’s smart in theory, but the logistics are iffy. Blood coagulates. How is this bottle still liquid after days in a backpack? Is there a preservative in there? Explain all of the things for us, please. Find a way. Writers, do better.
If that’s not enough, Noah doesn’t put any on himself…
😑
So, what do these two idiots do now? They leave the hose behind and take off on foot. Yeah. Sure. Two people, one of whom is shot and limping around with a bullet in his chest, decide to run through zombie infested woods on foot.
Fuck’s sake.
If I’m running through undead-infested forest terrain and I have a perfectly good horse, you’d have to pry the reins from my cold, undead fingers.
Later on we get a close-up of her sleeves that are… wait for it… suspiciously devoid of icky zombie blood.
I guess that blood-camo ghosted her like common sense ghosted this film.
In the woods, Logan finally catches up with them, because of course he does, he has a fucking horse.
Noah tells Rory how to find his house and sends her off alone while he stays behind to face off with Logan in what should’ve been a tragic, tension-filled final stand. Instead, we get a pretty OK fight that’s undercut by some very not OK nonsense, in my humble grouch-infested opinion.
First, Noah shoots up adrenaline, courtesy of Otto, and suddenly he’s a track star. No limp. No shortness of breath. The bullet wound that nearly killed him? Apparently patched by hope and plot convenience. He runs through the trees, punches, kicks, tackles, and somehow forgets how to aim. During the fight, he jams both thumbs into Logan’s eyes, and nothing happens.
Logan just sort of shrugs it off. I’m sorry—if someone tries to gouge your eyes out, something’s going to give. But this guy? Eyes of steel, I guess, or Noah has the limpest little thumbs known to man.
I mean, really. We spent so much time on that shot of Noah sticking his thumbs in Logan’s eyes and got nothing for it. Eyeballs are fragile little bubbles of gooey shit. That attempt was covered in weak-sauce, Noah.
Still, Noah wins (honestly, good). Finally. Shoots Logan in the head. But does he run? Try to escape? Head toward his son’s house? Nope. He just stands there and lets the zombies fall on him like he forgot what genre of movie he’s in. The smart move here would’ve been to shoot Logan in the legs, let his screams draw the zombies, and GTFO. But no. Noah’s like, “My job here is done,” and plants himself like a tree waiting to be gnawed on.
We do get an awesome shot of a zombie though. Grade-A makeup artistry here.
Meanwhile, Rory’s making her own pilgrimage through hell, at night, I might add. So this kid’s time, in reality, is long up. We’ve definitely hit 3 days at this point. How does an entire production team just gloss over these glaring errors?
Annoying.
She runs through the woods, flashlight in hand (love that she finally brings light… at night… in zombie forest… clever), but of course this alerts every zombie in a 3km radius. We quickly establish the light does seem to draw the attention of the zombies but then she runs away from them with the flashlight still on? Why are you stupid, Rory?
The audio design here? Suspiciously Last of Us-y.
If I hear one more clicker-style growl I might scream. Like, invent your own zombie noises, please. You clearly went to great lengths to give them a unique look—why stop at sound?
Now, she gets into a hand-to-hand fight with a zombie, which she wins, well done you, and we get a really awesome cinematography sequence which was *chef’s kiss*. 💋
Unfortunately this redemption arc get’s a big nasty zombie bite.
Visually fantastic and gorgeous movie.
Emotionally gutting.
Logically devoid.
But our girl keeps going, because zombie-bite or not, she’s on a mission.
Now covered in a lot of zombie blood, she comes face to face with some slimy zombies who eventually decide she’s not food, because she stinks like them. Well done.
But it still makes me wonder: How intelligent are these zombies? Smart enough to use a door, but not smart enough to tell live prey from other zombies?
Then we cut to daylight… This kid is so far past his expiration date I don’t understand what the writers were thinking, but Rory finds the damn house. Finally.
She knocks on the door, gets met with a shotgun-wielding Christine (Noah’s mum), and hands over the bag. Christine barely looks at her, asks after her sons (plural, ouch), and does not notice the fresh, gaping bite wound on Rory’s arm. Not even a glance. Amazing powers of observation from the woman with the gun.
Rory walks away. She sits down in the grass as the infection creeps through her veins. We get flashes of the bite spreading as blood pools in her eyes. She raises the gun to her chin again, mirroring her earlier moment at the river. This time, she’s done everything she could. She couldn’t save her daughter, but she might’ve saved someone else’s child. It’s not closure—but it’s something.
And then it just… ends. No resolution for Christine or the kid. No epilogue. No Scout. No Otto (RIP, king). Just Rory, alone, fading into the forest with a loaded gun and no answers. Forgive us all.
Final Thoughts
Forgive Us All is the kind of film that hits hard emotionally but misses just as hard logically. It wants to be profound—and sometimes is—but it also expects you to ignore massive plot holes, vanishing horses, and characters who seem allergic to common sense. Rory’s arc is strong, and the ending lands in that bittersweet, hopeless pocket I usually love. But the journey there? A frustrating zigzag of great intentions and baffling execution.
It’s beautiful. It’s bold. It’s also a bit of a mess.
💉 ⭐⭐⭐🧟♀️
Where to Watch
🔍 Forgive Us All (2025) is currently screening in cinemas across New Zealand and Australia. International release dates are forthcoming. Availability may vary by region.