Ten years after the world fell apart, what's left of it is barely human. In Year 10, the rules of civilisation have long since vanished, and what's replaced them is primal and cruel. Ben Goodger’s feature debut arrives on digital in the UK this August through Reel2Reel Films, and it doesn’t whisper a single word. Literally. The entire story unfolds without dialogue.
This is a world of rotting silence and raw instinct. Society is dead, and the survivors know it. What’s left are scavengers and hunters, desperate not just to live, but to outlive the pack. Packs, in this case, that include roving cannibals and feral dogs just as eager to tear flesh.
At the heart of it all is a young man, played by Toby Goodger, who sees his father (Duncan Lacroix) murdered right in front of him by a roaming cannibal tribe. The attack strips him of everything, including the medicine he desperately needs to keep his girlfriend (Hannah Khalique-Brown) alive. She’s seriously wounded and growing weaker by the hour. The odds are impossible, but that doesn't seem to matter. He sets off alone to hunt the killers, reclaim what was stolen, and hold onto what’s left of his humanity. If there's any still in him.
Originally a short film called Coming of Age, this expanded version doesn’t shy away from what makes post-apocalyptic horror truly unsettling. The silence adds to the bleakness, stripping characters and audience alike of comfort. Everything has to be read in glances, gestures, and raw emotion. It's not just a gimmick either. That absence of language ends up speaking louder than most scripts ever do.
Goodger builds a world that’s tactile and dangerous, but it’s not just the threat of cannibals or wolves that lingers. It’s the gnawing fear that losing civilisation also means losing yourself.
Year 10 lands on digital 4 August. It's grim, sparse, and deeply human, even when the people in it are anything but.
