The 2024 post-apocalyptic action thriller film, Elevation, does a decent job of telling an exciting story with a slightly unique premise, as humans struggle to survive in a changed world haunted by a new apex predator. The story is centered around a man named Will, who ventures out into dangerous territories with two women from his settlement, Nina and Katie, in order to retrieve medication crucial for his son, Hunter. But the more dangerous context to this mission is that the three have to travel through areas where mysterious new predators called Reapers lurk around with the sole intention of killing humans, three years after a devastating apocalypse. Overall, Elevation makes for quite an entertaining watch, and it also sets up a possibility for a sequel in the end, suggesting that it might be turned into a franchise.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
Elevation sets its premise in the first few scenes, through news clips playing in the background, describing how the emergence of a new type of creature has brought complete chaos to the world. These creatures, believed by scientists to have been hibernating for so long, crawled out of the earth to wreak havoc and kill humans without any discernible reason. As news clips from various parts of the world are played, one interesting thing becomes clear—the creatures, named Reapers by humans, do not climb up over 8,000 feet for some odd reason. Therefore, people living in places located 8,000 feet above sea level are completely safe from the apocalypse that soon destroys the rest of the Earth. As a result, all the humans who have been able to survive move up to elevated places, and boundary lines are carefully laid out at 8,000 feet elevation to ensure that they do not mistakenly wander into the spots of danger.
Three years after the apocalypse, Elevation takes us to a location in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado, just 260 feet below the boundary laid out, now called the Line. Here, a young boy walks around all alone, seemingly looking for something or someone, as he often takes a glance through the pair of binoculars that he is carrying. However, he cannot explore the place for very long, as sudden noises of wings, hooves, and a distinct chittering alert him that a ferocious Reaper is nearby. The boy is finally able to survive narrowly, as he manages to cross the Line just in time, and he returns to his home in the small settlement of Lost Gulch Refuge, some 460 feet above the reach of the Reapers. The boy, Hunter, lives with his father, Will, and both of them are still affected by the loss of their mother and wife, respectively, Tara. In fact, Hunter had gone out into the wilderness only to search for any remains or items of his mother, since there is nothing to remember her by.
Being the only kid in the settlement, Hunter is also extremely bored at the place, but Will is adamant that no human should ever venture out below the Line and that they should enjoy the safe abode that they have found. However, he himself decides to take a trip into the unknown very soon, when the stock of a specific medicine required by Hunter to keep his lung disease in check runs dry. Thus, Will chooses to travel to the abandoned town of Boulder, where the hospital should hold large amounts of the medicine, and asks a former scientist named Nina to accompany him. Soon, Will, Nina, and a third friend, Katie, leave Lost Gulch Refuge and journey towards Boulder, knowing well that they are bound to run into Reapers.
Why do Will and Katie dislike Nina?
Although Will asks for Nina’s help at the beginning of Elevation, he also makes it clear that he is not fond of her, and this is because of a very particular reason from the recent past. Around a year earlier, Will’s beloved wife, Tara, had lost her life while on an expedition with Nina. The ex-scientist has actually been researching the Reapers ever since she found shelter at Lost Gulch Refuge, and she has always wanted to return to her research laboratory in Boulder in order to get hold of some crucial items. As Nina reveals, she was a researcher at Caltech, and she has some specific theories about how to fight the Reapers, which can only be proved if she gets access to the items at the lab where she used to work. Thus, she had brought together a group to accompany her to Boulder and retrieve the research items, and incidentally, Tara had agreed to be a part of the group.
Will had tried his best to convince his wife to not leave the safety of Lost Gulch Refuge, stating that going to places below the Line would be suicidal. Unlike Will, though, Tara always liked looking at the bigger picture, and she was correct in stating that research on the Reapers was crucial for the humans’ efforts to fight against the creatures. While staying holed up at Lost Gulch Refuge would have definitely let the humans stay alive and well in the short run, they would eventually have to venture out to new places when supplies would run out. Besides, Hunter’s medicine was also an important matter for Will and Tara, and while the man stated that there was enough medicine to last a year, meaning that the family could live without any worry for one year, Tara focused on the fact that they would eventually have to go to Boulder and collect more medicine in the future.
Therefore, Tara ultimately decided to accompany Nina to the abandoned city so that she could collect her research material while also planning on making the short journey to Boulder Hospital and getting hold of the medicines required for Hunter’s lung ailment. Traveling to the city, which itself is located a couple thousand feet below the Line, obviously involved a lot of danger, and the group was unfortunately attacked by ferocious Reapers. Nina witnessed her whole team getting killed by the creatures, and Tara too sadly lost her life in this attack. Thus, Will already has a strong feeling of dislike against the woman as he holds her responsible, at least to some degree, for the death of Tara. Similarly, Katie hates her as well, as she was the best friend of Tara and holds similar beliefs as Will.
But Nina’s nature also makes her quite detestable, at least at the beginning of the journey, as she clearly comes off as too egotistical and rude. However, the truth is that Nina has seen so much loss in her life that she cannot see any positives around her anymore, and the sense of dejection that has been creeping into her mind is often mistaken as an egoistic belief about everyone being below her station. A major point of difference that Will always believes to exist between himself and Nina is that the woman never had any family, and so does not understand what it means to love or care for others. This is something that he had discussed with Tara as well, but towards the end of Elevation, it is revealed that Nina once had a very happy family life, with a caring husband and two loving kids. But she had lost her family during the apocalypse, and this ultimately made her very bitter and detached from forming any bonds with the survivors.
How does Katie die?
Will, Nina, and Katie take a different route towards Boulder than Nina and her group had taken earlier, and this is based on Will’s experience working for a company that operated in the nearby mines. His plan is to travel a significant distance through the tunnels of the mine so that they do not have to be out in the open well below 8,000 ft. However, he actually lies to the women about the exact safety of the tunnels, initially stating that the entire mine is above the safe level, and so the Reapers cannot attack them. The trio is actually attacked once already on their way to the mine, when they go below the Line for a few yards, and Katie somehow survives on this occasion. As they head into the mines, Will reveals the truth, and then the situation takes a turn for the worse when they realize that the tunnel they were planning to take is sealed off. Instead, they have to travel through the tunnel on the lower level, meaning that they are going to be even more exposed to the monstrous creatures.
As expected, a Reaper attacks the group, for it is very characteristic of the creatures to dig out of the ground, in the same way as they had suddenly emerged three years ago. It immediately tracks down the trio using its exceptional skills and then chases them, forcing the humans to temporarily take shelter inside a small crevice. Staying put in this position for long is not possible either, and so they try to find a way out of it soon. Noticing some loose rocks, Katie moves them aside and enthusiastically crawls out of the crevice before the others, not realizing that the Reaper is intelligent enough to track her and wait to attack her on the outside. Thus, Katie is impaled by one of the sharp tentacles of the Reaper, and her body is dragged away by it. The young woman unknowingly sacrifices her life to distract the creature and ensure that Will and Nina can safely travel through the rest of the tunnel and eventually reach Boulder.
What is the origin of the mysterious Reapers?
The most intriguing factor in Elevation is definitely its mysterious antagonists, the Reapers, who vehemently hate humans and attack them at every possible instance. Unlike what most humans believe the Reapers to be, the creatures are actually not predators, and this is cleverly pointed out by Nina. A predator in the animal kingdom kills other beings solely to consume their flesh, and this is why it is even debated whether humans can be called the highest-ranking apex predators on planet Earth. However, the Reapers do not actually eat the flesh of humans, and so it is not clear as to why they kill at all. It is also quite strange that they hunt and kill only human beings and no other animals, who would prove to be easier targets. This is clear from the fact that horses and buffaloes are seen by the characters roaming around the world wildly, with their population having grown significantly, without humans killing or controlling them.
Therefore, it seems like the Reapers have come only to kill humans and bring an end to human civilization, and their emergence is filled with mystery as well. The creatures started to dig up from holes in the ground all over the world, leading to scientists believing that they might have been hibernating underground since prehistoric ages. However, when Nina ultimately figures out a way to kill the creatures, a significant discovery about their origin is made. Nina had come to believe that the Reapers have an electrical charge running through their scales, because of which bullets or grenades cannot do any harm against them. Her plan is to dip bullets in some material that also has a high electrical charge and then shoot the Reapers with them, which would lead to internal combustion and the destruction of the creatures. Eventually, when she reaches her old research laboratory and remembers how her team had been using cobalt to make the electrical effects of batteries stronger, she dips the bullets in cobalt and uses them against the Reapers. Much to her excitement, the bullets strike the Reapers and lead to electrical blasts that immediately kill the creatures.
Based on the manner in which they die, the Reapers are revealed to actually be mechanical robots and not organic beings. Thus, they had not been hibernating underground but had been designed and programmed by someone to emerge from the earth and wipe out human civilization. This also explains the creatures’ strange practice of never stepping onto locations situated over 8,000 feet. They had been programmed not to cross that elevation, and this is why they adhere to this rule so strictly. This discovery also means that the Reapers were made by someone, and although Elevation does not reveal or even hint anything about the creators, a few theories can be thought of. Will only looks up to the sky when Nina asks him this question, as if suggesting God, or some overwhelmingly powerful creator behind the creation of humans and other life forms, might have just moved on to the next stage and is now using technology to create newer apex predators to rule over Earth.
Another possibility might be that this is the work of a secret group of wealthy and influential humans who wanted to wipe out most of the population of the Earth. The increasing shortage of natural resources and overpopulation on the planet might have led them towards the decision to design vicious creatures that would just keep killing humans one after another. This might also explain the 8,000 ft rule to some extent, as the group might have programmed the Reapers to never cross the specific elevation because they had created their safe haven at places above the height. But in case this is true, people like Will, or the others living in similar settlements in the Rocky Mountains, do not know of it yet.
In Elevation’s ending, Nina shares the cobalt with the rest of the people at her settlement, and they venture out to kill as many Reapers as they can find. She also raises the pirate flag for the other settlements to see, which is a means of communication between the remaining humans, and informs them about the new development. Thus, at the end of the film, the humans fight back and reclaim the lands that they had lost, wiping out the Reapers and ushering in a new age of hope and survival for humankind. On a personal level, Will succeeds in recovering a large amount of medication as well, meaning that he will no longer have to worry about Hunter’s health from now on.
Will There Be A Sequel?
Elevation’s mid-credits scene teases a possible sequel and also suggests one more theory about the origin of the Reapers. Will and Nina are seen in some desert lands, clearly out on an adventure to find and kill more of the creatures. But they spot something bright in the night sky and look up to see objects that look like meteors hurling down towards Earth. Their faces make it evident that they also know that these are not meteors but either a new batch of Reapers or some other creatures equally, or even more, ferocious than the previous ones. This also suggests that the Reapers might have been made by some alien race, which has launched an indirect attack on the humans on Earth. The mid-credits scene reveals that Will and Nina’s mission is far from over, and a sequel to Elevation is very much possible.
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