To most it came as a surpise,
not many understood,
too few cared enough to stop it,
then it no longer mattered
how many understood or cared.
It was too late.
These are the opening lines to the SHTF-style movie “Deadly Harvest”. Got Harvest? In Deadly Harvest they don’t. Rawles, bro, you seriously gotta add this to your recommended survival movie list. I didn’t even know this movie existed before someone brought it to my attention. It’s sooooo shit hits the fan. It’s totally up your TEOTWAWKI alley.
Okay, so the acting is a little weak, and it’s from 1977, BUT – if you’re into survival action, and I KNOW you are – you should watch it. What’s this movie about? Well, it takes place in the late ’70′s. There’s a global “cooling” effect going on with freak snowstorms and such. There’s also an energy crisis in place, grain (when it was available) was too costly to grow and transport. Most parts of the world lost a year’s harvest. The movie starts off as they’re about to lose their 2nd. Food reserves were depleted the first year. Widespread famine is about to take hold.
As the opening credits end, the movie begins with several government officials sitting around a table, coming to the realization that there won’t be enough food to feed the masses, it’ll be pandemonium and mayhem. The government decides to cut rations to 30%, tell the people there’s a “temporary” supply problem, and cut phone communication. One person mentioned culling the population, letting the old and weak die, but ultimately they decide to let the country fall into chaos, to let people “move across the country like rats” in search of anything to eat.
This flick is low-budget, but it’s decent if you’re looking for a SHTF flick that you haven’t seen before. Hell, I hadn’t even heard of it before someone brought it to my attention. Being the TEOTWAWKI tutor that I am, I promptly went out and seized the DVD. I wish the movie had started where it did and carried on across the entire 2nd harvest season, but instead it just covers the beginning, as a few city dwellers begin the raids on rural farm folk. There are still lessons to learn, however. Here are a few:
Rural Raids: In TEOTWAWKI event such as this, I find it extremely likely that city folks will head into rural areas to raid farms as they did in this movie. First they show up begging, then they show up with guns. Farmer dude is going to shoot his daughter’s cow to help them get through the winter, so daughter dude-ette takes her cow into the pasture to hide it when 3 city dudes scouring the rural area spot her, stop, push her into the ground, blast the cow, and haul it away. They come back again . . and again . . and again. They’re hoarding food.
Roadblocks: As you would imagine, country living dudes set up a roadblock and start questioning people coming and going. Hell, troops even set up a roadblock in the city and enforce a curfew, because human rats are moving city-to-city to gather food. Country dude trying to enter the city to bring a little revenge gets stopped at such a roadblock and the troops say, “You got a permit for that rifle?” Country dude: “it’s just a hunting rifle.” Troops: “Out of the truck – right now!”
You Can’t Eat Gold: Mr. Nice, formerly rich, city computer programmer dude goes to the “black market” in hopes of buying food for his family. He offers his entire stock portfolio for food, but Mr. Black Market guy says, “While you and your friends were buying gold, I was stocking up on food” and “If you want food, get a gun and go out and get it!” Computer programmer dude plugs figures into his pc and concludes that the nation has 27 days until all the food is gone. He DOES end up getting a meal’s worth of food for the family. He cooks it, and pours poison into the gravy before serving it to the family. Kinda like a last supper.
Like I said, it’s a low-budget movie and the acting isn’t great, but it’s likely entertaining to SHTF survival ninjas. The 70′s clothing and hair is also good for a chuckle.
Memorable quote from a sad, sick little girl: “Daddy, did you find something to eat?”
Grow your food, folks. Stock the pantry. We’re all gonna die.
- Ranger Man
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{ 8 comments }
Scary possibilities ahead.
In real SHTF the military may very well turn out to be some of the worst offenders. Military, paramilitary, police, or even gangs could take over large areas and ensure their members and families are well provided for by any means necessary.
This is why I believe you need a close knit group of like minded people ready to band together for mutual support. If you attempt to go it alone you are very vulnerable.
Gold being useless – I agree. Why stock up on gold (useless unless others agree it is worth something) when you can better use your money to stock up on food and supplies of every sort. This kind of stuff will always be worth something as trade and you can use it yourself too.
I really don’t get the “Ya can’t eat gold” thing.
If there’s a famine, it can get you a flight or other transport out the place.
I also hear many say they have more guns and ammo than a small 3rd world country. Yes have a gun, and a stock of ammo to use in it, but if the country breaks down into an all out shoot-a-thon, all those weapons aren’t going to be worth shit as in every war zone, you can’t cross the street without falling over them lieing around on the ground as deadmen don’t take their weapons with them.
Food, having 10 years supply of food is all well and good, but what good is it having old weevil infested stuff that you bought in 98 preparing for Y2K when fresh is available? How many people stock tons of rice and beans etc but never eat any of it?
You ask them why, and they say well the kids don’t like it. WTF??
Also having a warehouse full of food is all well and good, but how long do you think it will last if you can’t protect it?
You need a few bits of everything, gold (preferably silver) food, and a few guns. There’s nothing like a few corpses on the ground to dissuade an angry mob, believe me. Any armed citizens at the front of an angry mob are going to be the 1st I start shooting at. The gold thing, why hang around if you can fly out to London with your family and 6hrs later you’re sat in Harrods drinking tea and eating cakes with the wife and kids? A years time, you go back and rebuild once all the idiots have shot each other.
FYI. Not all of us preparing for dark days are planning to do so through violence and hording.
Me and my wife, FlowerWoman, are opening our own surivalism blog soon. We plan to call it HarmonyBlog or some variant thereof.
We stockpile mostly ligh appetizers and herbal tea. We know, as Calvinist Baptists who believe in Election, that all disputes can be settled over a cucumber sandwich and a cup of soothing herbal tea. Most of the worlds problems are caused by people who grow irritable from conusming too much meat.
Abandon the meat. Then abandon your guns. W can all escape the madness and find the gladness.
Yes. Abandon the Guns. Thus speaketh Yaway. Arm yourselves only with love. Cloth yourselves only with arousal.
We will soon buy land in Northern Idaho and open an herbal tea plantation. All we are waiting on is about a hundred-thousand more dollars in donations. Those wishing to sell their worldly goods and join us there may do so by donating the proceeds to us. Must be open minded.
Halt your shtf-mongering before the end is nigh. The straw burns and the monkey falls from the stove.
Flower Power.
The points about raiding of farms and checkpoints are worthwhile. Also about maning and running checkoints.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Flowerman your post was two day late.
Flowerman,
Get a grip fella, the real way the world works (I know, I’ve seen enough of it) is a little something like this: “Those who turn their guns into plowshares, will plow for those who didn’t!” If you don’t get a grip, then when you’re murdered by the thugs, renegade soldiers (cops) and everybody else who’s starving, they will be the one’s to hear the lamentations of your women.
Ah, why stock up on all this gear again?
Too much food, and it rots- too many bullets and guns, and you’re going to get in a shootout, maybe even before TSHTF, bro. Itchy trigger fingers have the darndest way of getting themselves cured… Too much of a castle, and it’s a sweet and inviting target to any Wolfenstein-3D types roaming and scrounging.
There is a happy medium here, that it seems we’re missing: be ready to travel light, have enough water to go for a few weeks, and don’t be ashamed to get stealthy. Why make yourself a target here? If you start a serious growing operation, if three weeks into TEOTW and you’re looking strangely… well fed – then people are gonna take up all the leftover and left behind arms and come looking for ya – much as they did anyone else who reeked of needed goods.
Stay low, keep away from the walls, and make yourself invisible- don’t attract attention and don’t let anybody know what you’re up to. So long as you seem like everybody else, you can get by. The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
The hardest part of this, the big question is: “how to protect and care for your loved ones when the SHTF?”
Ranger man, let’s see a guide on that- most of us can handle a pistol or rifle better than our mothers-in-law or even wifey. How to accomodate and increase our clan’s chances of surviving in this shitastic post-internet age?