Stream It Or Skip It: ‘American Refugee’ on Hulu, Where A Family Shelters In A Survivalist’s Bunker After Society Collapses

Erika Alexander and Derek Luke are parents forced to shelter in their survivalist neighbor’s bunker in American Refugee (Hulu), which appears under the Blumhouse Productions banner and aims to explore the horror elements that might arise when a family watches society enter freefall and, with nowhere to turn, they’re compelled to enter a newer, smaller, subterranean society, where they tussle with its builder and would-be king.

AMERICAN REFUGEE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: The Taylor family has recently moved into a spacious home in a rural area miles from the nearest city. Helen (Erika Alexander), a doctor, and Greg (Derek Luke), an author and academic, have just welcomed baby Mia to their family, which also includes daughter Zoe (Zamani Wilder) and son Kai (Peyton Jackson). Kai, who the Taylors adopted as a fiver-year-old, chooses not to speak. But he’s sweet and thoughtful, and there’s room on the new property for his pet chicken and her babies. There is idyll in this new phase, and hopefully space to heal the fractures in Greg and Helen’s marriage, but the big picture is only getting worse. The economy is collapsing, the stock market is cratering, borders are closing, and food shortages are looming. Helen visits the local market, but the shelves are barren. She also comforts a young, scared pregnant woman there, and helps her pick out a few basic medical supplies. The schools close down, and people take to the streets in a panic. And when Greg drives to the city to try and collect Helen’s sister Brooke (Charity Jordan), he sees that bedlam has truly taken hold.

The Taylors hadn’t ever inquired about their neighbors; the realtor just said they kept to themselves. But the electrified fence is a curious touch, and when a boy named Matty (Vince Mattis) appears in their driveway asking for Helen, he’s conspicuously armed. It turns out he’s the son of a man named Winter (Sam Trammell), and they live in the compound next door with Amber (Jessi Case), the pregnant woman from the market. There are complications with the baby. Can Helen come quick?

Matty leads Helen and Greg past an old trailer and rundown outbuildings to a barn and a sturdy metal hatch. Below the property is a fortified bunker complete with water, power, supplies, and a very testy Winter, who warily allows Helen to examine Amber. There’s a strong sense that a guy like Winter might have been living in this bunker anyway, even if society wasn’t in full collapse. But when the Taylors’ home is raided by looters, the family still seeks shelter with him. His bunker is the only game in town.

What follows is the construction of an awkward new family dynamic. Greg and Winter trade Gandhi quotes, each interpreting the context to suit their competing ideologies. (The armed-up Winter wonders how a husband and father who’s a pacifist could ever protect his own.) Zoe, Kai, and even Matty are caught in the crossfire between the bickering adults. Amber’s baby is born, but formula wasn’t something Winter considered when he stocked his bunker. And Helen and Greg’s fractious relationship is further tested when Winter starts thinking Helen would be a better mate for him than her husband. Above ground, society is crumbling. But down here, Winter is the one with all of the guns, and the only key to the hatch.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? American Refugee and 10 Cloverfield Land feature a similar blend of societal dysfunction, bunkerized claustrophobia, and god complexes on display.

Performance Worth Watching: The few scenes early on in American Refugee that feature Charity Jordan, more recently of the Wonder Years reboot, as Brooke are full of personality, humor, and insight into what makes the Taylors tick. More Charity Jordan!

Memorable Dialogue: “Your husband’s got a spirit in him,” Winter tells Helen. “It’s only so long before it comes out again, and when it does I don’t want it coming at me. That’s not gonna end well.” This is his way of telling Helen that she and her family are short timers in his bunker. “I’ll give you a week.”

Sex and Skin: When Winter walks in on Helen showering, it’s an act loaded with the arrogance of someone who thinks he’s the ruler of his own underground kingdom.

Our Take: From the moment we meet Helen, we understand her as a mother, wife, and medical professional, as someone who pivots between each of those roles, or is required to act on all of them at once. And we understand this mostly through the fine work of Erika Alexander (Living Single, Get Out), who conveys Helen’s frustrations with Greg, tactical acceptance of life in the bunker, and self-assuredness as a doctor with her eyes, voice, and physical presence. From the moment they’re admitted to Winter’s subterranean fiefdom, Helen understands the rules of the game. And she knows she has to keep Greg and the kids on board with it, no matter how crazy, since the potential for something even crazier exists outside. Alexander makes Helen measured, but forceful, and that comes in handy when the god complex shit inevitably hits the fan.

Derek Luke is great in American Refugee, too, even if the script doesn’t quite offer Greg the revelatory moments it does Helen. And Sam Trammell, best known as Sam from True Blood, plays pretty well against type as the survivalist Winter, a man with an itchy trigger finger and delusions of grandeur that eat at his would-be noble aims like so many rats in a dry goods supply room. Winter’s assertions of “Everybody’s gotta bring something to the table!” and “You all being in here one month uses up six months of supplies!” belies his delight at having subjects over which to reign. What’s lacking in American Refugee are roles for the children inside the bunker dynamic. Winter’s son Matty disappears from the narrative completely, the meaning of Kai’s chosen silence is considered and then discarded, and Zoe has only teen protest to define her, though Zamani Wilder does her best with what she’s given.

Our Call: STREAM IT. These days, it often feels like our own society is one or two steps away from bunkering down, so maybe there’s something to be learned in the experiences of the Taylor family in American Refugee.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges