Scurry

Directed by Luke Sparke, Scurry is a tale of survival shot in real time and told in a single continuous take, with a few liberties taken here and there. We follow two strangers trapped underground after a sudden city-wide catastrophe unleashes something monstrous.

Scurry opens in the aftermath of a catastrophic assault from falling rock, meteors, or something more sinister. Amidst the destruction, Mark (Jamie Costa) awakens in a massive pit, pinned beneath broken concrete. Looking up from the pit, he can only see fire and ruin. Injured, he manages to free himself just long enough to call his family. No one answers, and he leaves a final message of sorts in hopes of surviving. With no help arriving, he crawls deeper into the dark tunnel beneath the collapsing city, seeking escape.

Inside the tunnels, Mark encounters Sarah (Emalia), another wounded survivor. Their first meeting is tense—she warns him to stay quiet, whispering that someone, or something, will hear them. As the walls tremble and the ground shakes, Sarah bolts deeper into the passage, forcing Mark to follow. When he catches up to her, she delivers a grim revelation: most people are already dead, and escape may be impossible. Her desperation shows when she brandishes a gun and reveals that her real name is not Sarah, but Kate.

As they press forward, the tunnel seems to close in on them, pushing them further underground while something pursues them. Soon, they hear noises emanating from the darkness. The growls echoing through the tunnel are clearly not those of humans. As hope dwindles, Mark and Kate must choose whether to trust each other or use each other for survival.

“Amidst the destruction, Mark awakens in a massive pit, pinned beneath broken concrete.”

Writer/director Luke Sparke says that Scurry was born out of his love for classic creature features and the primal fear of being trapped with no way out. His goal was to create an experience that felt raw and relentless, placing the audience in the same disorienting situation as Mark and Kate. He says that the film is about survival in a collapsing world where the environment itself becomes an enemy, layered with the tension of an unseen predator closing in.

Scurry is a small film that feels big, thanks to Sparke’s opening sequence, which provides a wide overview of a city in chaos and then pulls us right up close to our first hero, Mark. Sparke then builds the tension by first making this a story of survival on one’s own, and then, when a partner is introduced, pivots and turns it all into a monster story.

The main focus of his human story is one of trust and survival between Mark and Kate. Can the two work together? Not only must they work together, but they must also resist the temptation to use each other as bait for the monsters.

As a thriller, and as shown in Sparke’s recent feature, Primitive War, he knows how to create a monster movie. I can’t say much about what it is, but it’s beautifully animated, and Sparke makes great use of his claustrophobic setting. There’s a decent attempt to make this feel like one long continuous cut, but it’s not that hard to find moments of movie magic…but don’t let that deter you from a fun ride.

Director Luke Sparke drew inspiration from classic creature features, aiming to capture the primal fear of being trapped and hunted in an unforgiving environment. With Scurry, he uses a single continuous take to immerse viewers in a claustrophobic struggle for survival, where trust and resilience are tested against an unknown predator.