Retreat (2011)

Retreat is an 2011 British independent psychological thriller film and the directional debut of former film editor Carl Tibbets. The film stars Cillian Murphy, Jamie Bell, and Thandie Newton as three people isolated from the rest of the world on a remote island off the coast of Scotland, who are told they are survivors of a fatal airborne disease that is sweeping over the entire world. However, their induced isolation may be the result of a lie, and it may be that they are being held at the whim of a madman. The film has had mainly postive reviews.

London architect Martin Kennedy (Cillian Murphy) and his journalist wife Kate (Thandie Newton) often visit a small, remote and uninhabited island off the west coast of Scotland, Blackholme Island, for their holiday retreats. Fairweather Cottage, the only dwelling on Blackholme Island, is seasonally operated by the owner Doug from the mainland and only reachable by ferry across freezing water. After Kate suffers a miscarriage, her relationship with Martin becomes tense and begins to suffer, and in an effort to rekindle their marriage the couple decide to stay on the island one last time. A few nights into their last retreat, the generator in the cottage explodes, burning Martin's arm and leaving the couple without electricity or a phone. The Kennedys use the CB radio to call Doug on the mainland, who agrees to ferry out to help them. Kate spends the next day waiting at the boat jetty for Doug to arrive, but to no avail. Later a mysterious man in green combat fatigues washes up on the island, bloodied and half-conscious. When he comes round, he identifies himself as a soldier, Private Jack Coleman. Jack tells the Kennedys that there has been an outbreak of an airborne disease, Argromoto Flu, codenamed R1N16, which started in South America and has spread over the entire world in the timespan of a few weeks. The virus is incurable and highly contagious, attacking the respiratory system and causing the victims to choke on blood with a 100% fatality rate. Jack tells the couple that the military has lost control, and is now advising civilians to seal themselves up in their homes and not allow anybody access within. With only static now coming from the CB radio, Martin decides to play it safe and help Jack board up the door and the windows, but Jack makes it clear he is taking charge of the cottage. Over the next few days, Jack becomes increasingly strange and erratic, and his intimidating behaviour begins to disturb the couple even further. They even suspect that the virus may not be real and Jack may be insane. When Kate asks Jack if he is married, he tells her his wife died of R1N16 and he becomes aggressive and threatening. The Kennedys decide to leave the cottage and take their chances outside, but Jack refuses to let them, forcing them into the bedroom at gunpoint and locking them in. Martin sneaks outside through a skylight, finding the dead bodies of Doug and his wife at the pier; the elderly couple have died of gunshot wounds. Using Doug's hunting rifle, Martin returns to the cottage and gets the upper hand on Jack and the Kennedys tie the soldier up. However, Martin suddenly begins coughing up blood; it appears the Argromoto Flu is very real and Martin is infected. Kate shoots Martin dead with the rifle, an act of mercy to spare her husband a slow and agonising death. Jack reveals to Kate that he was experimented upon at the secure military compound at Goose Bay, from which he was released but where he had unknowingly become a carrier of R1N16. Jack unwittingly infected his own wife, killing her, and he fled to Blackholme Island to quarantine himself, deliberately impairing the CB radio to avoid contact with the outside world. Jack gave Martin the virus after he sealed himself, Martin and Kate in the house. Kate gets Jack to fix the CB radio, and the military broadcast on it claims the soldiers have a vaccine to the virus. Jack tells Kate that the military are lying, there is no vaccine, and that the military will not allow them to leave the island alive. Kate does not believe Jack and, enraged, shoots him dead also. As she attempts to leave the island in the boat with Martin's body, a military helicopter flies over and shoots Kate dead.