The film is set sometime in the near future, and centers around two sisters named Eva,
and Nell, who live in a remote cabin with their dad.
Eva is an aspiring dancer, meanwhile Nell is a bright bookworm, who’s looking forward to getting
accepted at an ivy league school. The house is full of all kinds of books, because they
live so far out of town that the dad collects all kinds of self-help books for dire times.
One day, the dad is reading an article when breaking news comes on the TV saying that there is
a massive power outage all along the west coast. Not long after the breaking news on TV, the power
in the entire house goes out, and to make matters worse, Nell suddenly loses a signal on her phone.
Nell who has to study with books now, has to retrieve a flashlight from the car.
Unfortunately, after she opens the trunk of the car, she forgets to close it properly.
This causes the car's lights to come on all night, which drains the battery.
The next morning, as the family is getting ready to go get fuel, they find that the
car won't start. And so, the father digs for a spare battery, and Nell immediately
turns on the radio to listen to the news.
The reporter mentions that due to an emergency,
the nearby power plant has been shut down. When they’re trying to get their car to start,
the radio starts broadcasting rumors that a bunch of terrorists are trying to take over the power
plant, and it seems like 300 million people are now living without a power backup generator.
The government also advises everyone to stay home and conserve resources. Even worse,
a few days later, every single radio channel has officially died.
Ten days later, there is still no power, but on that exact day, the dad comes up with an idea;
using a chainsaw, the crafty dad manages to get the car to start.
The family then drives out to the city to restock on supplies, and on the way,
they notice how quiet and empty the houses they pass by are.
Moreover, the gas station they pass through has run out of gas too.
When they arrive at the grocery store, most of the shelves are empty, and the employee, whose name is
Stan, waves around a rifle, shocking the dad. He begins saying that during this time of crisis, a
lot of people have been trying to raid the store, but the dad plays it cool and starts venturing
the aisles with his daughter. They purchase some food and five gallons of gas from Stan.
Later when they’re loading their purchase into the car, Stan hands them a box of free items,
and asks if they plan on leaving town, but the dad says they’re staying.
Afterwards, the dad drops his daughter off like he normally would; Eva attends dance
practice to prepare for a national audition. Meanwhile, Nell goes to see her boyfriend, Eli,
at a party, and Nell loved every moment she spent with Eli today.
At night, the dad picks them both up to go home. However, when they’re passing through the woods,
they come across a pulled over car with a man screaming in pain inside,
so the dad steps out to help the poor man. But instead, he comes face to face with two armed
men who don’t look friendly, so he steps back inside the car. The dad resumes his journey home,
and it is not known what the men are doing there. When they arrive, the car’s gas is almost empty.
On the following day, we learn that the family will spend the next few weeks surviving on the
supplies they got. With the power still out and the absence of news on the radio,
the dad suspects that society might have fallen into chaos,
and announces that they’re not going to head into town for a while. He thinks
that they should be fine because they should be able to survive on their own;
after all, they’ve got water, chickens, and wild animals and plants in the woods to survive with.
However, Nell objects because she wants to see her boyfriend, Eli.
That same day, the dad enters the woods to chop down a tree for firewood, but suddenly,
he slips and slices himself in the thigh.
His screams of pain don’t go unnoticed by his two daughters, who immediately rush to his aid.
They wrap a belt around his thigh to stop the bleeding, and we can see that he
had lost a lot of blood. Eva begs her dad to stop talking when he tells the girls to take
care of each other and love one another. They lay by his side until nighttime.
But by that point, the dad has already bled to death, leaving them with no choice but to cry.
In the morning, they lay his body to rest; both are very sad about this,
as their mother died in childhood, and after that, their father was everything for them.
Now they become each other's support, and return to the house to clean themselves up.
They mourn for days to come, and it'll give them time to heal emotionally.
We skip to two months later, and now the sisters have learned to accept their situation,
even though they sometimes remember the moments with their dad. They have also
learned to survive by rationing their food; that morning, they eat eggs from the chickens they own.
Sick of the lack of technology, Eva takes the five gallons of gas they’ve got,
and suggests to Nell that they should turn the generator on, so they could have electricity
for a bit to watch videos of their parents. But Nell says no, because it takes two gallons just
to go to town, and two more to head back, and they should keep fuel for emergencies.
In the end, Eva surrenders with contempt, and the sisters don’t talk for the rest of the day.
On the next morning, Nell wakes up to find all their chicken gone, possibly eaten by a fox.
With no chicken egg to eat, Nell prepares some grain and barbeque sauce for breakfast.
Sadly, that day, Eva is still mad at her, and refuses to talk to her.
In the evening,
Nell wakes up to find Eva gone from her side, so she goes out and searches for her in the woods.
To her horror, she begins hearing a shrieking hog, and starts to frantically search for her sister.
Luckily, it was just a nightmare; Eva wakes her up and hugs her to comfort her. Seeing her sister
crying, Eva realizes that they cannot fight with each other because they need each other very much.
On the next day, Nell finds a kinder egg, and immediately eats it, because she needs a taste
of normalcy. When Eva finds out, she is furious, because she expected Nell to at least share.
But all of a sudden, they get interrupted by a knock on the door,
which prompts Nell to pick up their father’s rifle before checking it out.
As it turns out, it is Eli, her boyfriend who she hasn’t seen in a while. He admits
to being a drifter nowadays, and asks if he could stay for a few days.
Nell of course welcomes him, and the two spend time cozying up with each other for the next few days.
In the morning, Nell takes Eli to show him a place; it is a big tree,
inside which they can live, this is where these two become intimate.
Here we learn that Eli’s presence annoys Eva, who thinks that Eli is making their food run out faster,
and is afraid Nell is going to get pregnant. However, Nell assures her not to worry about that.
On the next day, Eli finally reveals the reason why he came all this way to see Nell. He wants
to be sure if she’s the love of his life, and now that he’s sure, he wants to ask her to go
to Boston with him, because he heard that there’s a functioning society there with electricity and jobs.
Nell is excited to go, but when they inform Eva of their plans, Eva would rather stay.
Eva tells Eli that those are just rumors, and that walking to Boston for 8 months is risky.
When the sisters say their goodbyes on the next day, Nell is crying and saying that they are the
only family that either of them has. Eva tells her that they each made their own decision,
and that no one is to blame. After the sisters part ways, Eva tries to kill time by dancing,
but soon gets frustrated because she’s upset about her sister leaving.
Meanwhile, Nell and Eli decide to rest up for the night, but Nell seems to realize that she can't leave Eva alone like this.
Her father told her to take care of each other, so how could she leave her sister alone.
In the morning, she tells Eli that she wants to turn back. Eli understands this,
but it is also very important for him to find this place, so he goes alone.
Nell excitedly returns home and embraces her sister;
both of them are very happy to see each other again. Six months into the power outage,
the sisters find a book about wild plants, and venture out to collect them from the woods.
They gather berries and vegetables and process them so they could stock up on food supplies.
By now, they’ve also run out of toilet paper, so they’ve resorted to using leaves to wipe.
That night, Nell is in a good mood, so the sisters pop open a bottle of liquor,
and finally decide to use some of the gas to turn on the generator for a short time.
With electricity running in the house, they make popcorn in the microwave,
and start watching old family videos from when both their parents were still alive.
At some point during the night, Eva starts dancing to some music, until the generator dies again.
In a good mood on the next day, Nell excuses herself to retrieve some berries,
while Eva stays home to chop firewood. This is when all the sudden, a man approaches her;
it turns out to be Stan. He says he is just passing through, and Eva tells him that her
dad is looking for firewood nearby, because she thinks the man is acting strangely.
However, just when Eva is off guard, Stan suddenly lunges at her,
and begins to violate her while she screams in agony. Unfortunately, Nell isn’t around to help.
Afterwards, Stan takes a gas canister from the house, and takes off with their car.
When Nell finally returns, it’s already too late. She sees that Eva's condition is very bad, so she helps Eva
and takes care of her. A traumatized Eva takes a plan B to keep herself from getting pregnant,
while Nell spends the next few days fortifying the house by boarding up the walls. After seeing
how Eva is still traumatized after a while, Nell tries to cheer her up by using some more
of their gas to turn on the generator and play some music. Sadly, this doesn’t work.
Two months later, we learn that the sisters haven’t left the house since Eva’s incident.
As their food has practically run out by now, Nell digs through the shelves and cabinets,
until she accidentally stumbles upon a note from their dad. Seeing this, she excitedly
asks Eva to finally step out of the house to go and read it, but to their disappointment,
instead of a note, they only find seeds, which Nell decides to plant. During the process,
she tries to lift a huge rock, but instead ends up twisting a muscle on her back and screams in pain.
To help her, Eva is forced to overcome her trauma of stepping outside, and runs to her sister’s aid.
But after they return to the house, Eva breaks down in tears and admits that it
traumatizes her to even see the wood chopping area, because it reminds her of what happened.
Nell embraces her in understanding, and the two sisters fall asleep by each other’s side.
In the morning, Eva starts puking in the bathroom, and after doing some reading,
they discover that she is pregnant. Nell suggests that they abort it, but Eva insists on keeping it.
We now jump to seven months later; Nell has been doing a lot of reading on pregnancy,
and concludes that Eva needs vitamin B12 for her baby to be born healthy. Unfortunately,
B12 is only found in dairy products and animal meat, so that forces Nell to try her luck at
hunting. She stations herself on a tree branch and shoots a passing hog. But as she’s never
shot a rifle before, she didn’t anticipate how hard of a knock it would feel to fire it,
which causes her to fall. Luckily, she is fine, and proceeds to end the pig’s life.
That evening, the sisters feast on pork and berries, right when Eva picks up the smell of
smoke coming from outside. Realizing someone else might be camping nearby, the sisters seal up the
entrances to the house. Not long after, heavy rain falls that night, followed by a raging storm.
They remain this way for many days. In the morning, they are woken up by the sound of a slam, so Nell
hurriedly picks up the rifle, only to discover that the sound came from a collapsing ceiling.
And eventually, Eva starts feeling a contraction,
marking her baby’s upcoming birth. According to a book that Nell is reading, a contraction
might last for hours, meanwhile their house keeps breaking down even more by the second.
To ensure a safe birth, Nell and Eva take to the woods, to a tree house Nell used to go to.
There, she assists Eva as she gives birth, and the baby boy is fortunately born healthy.
The sisters wait out the storm until the next morning, while celebrating the new baby boy.
When they return to the house, it has fallen apart even more, and they discover that black
mold has been growing all over the ceiling, so that it’s unsafe for them to stay there.
All the sudden, Eva comes up with a crazy idea; she takes what’s left of their gas and propose
that they burn the house; because if they stay here, Stan or his friends could come
looking for them again, but if they simply leave it, someone else could move in and
start living there and they don’t want that. But if they burn it, if Stan ever comes back,
he will think that they’re dead, so they’d be safer. Though initially confused,
Nell eventually agrees to the idea, but takes her time to pack up valuable family belongings first.
When night falls, the sisters are finally ready to leave;
they set the house on fire and watch it burn.
At this point, they will learn to live in the same way that people used to live centuries ago.
The movie ends with them entering the woods, and setting up camp for the night.