He survived the war. He survived the cold. The part he can’t survive is what a single human presence awakens after six years underground.
There’s a specific kind of loneliness that doesn’t look dramatic at all. It doesn’t scream. It just… counts days.
Burrow (2023) opens with breath, effort, and a number that lands like a stone: 2,124 days. Lieutenant John F. Harvard “reporting in”, still scanning his perimeter for human life that never shows up. The world is quiet, colder every day, and John’s voice has that military neatness people use when they’re trying to keep their insides from spilling out.
Then the film does something simple and cruel: it gives him someone.
The apocalypse isn’t the villain, it’s the excuse
What I liked right away is how Burrow doesn’t waste time on big sci-fi explanations. No lore dump, no long “this is how society collapsed” lecture. Instead, it focuses on what isolation does to a person who’s already trained to lock everything down. John prays like he’s trying to keep God on the radio. He talks about dreams, death, and the possibility that he’s already gone. The end of the world starts feeling less like an event and more like a state of mind.
And when Harion appears, the movie doesn’t treat it like a jump scare. It treats it like weather. Like: this happened, and now John has to live with it.
Warmth, snakes, and the thing we don’t say out loud
Harion is heading “working”, parents somewhere out there. John offers a deal: help him hunt, and he’ll equip him with clothing and weapons. Practical survival stuff, sure. But there’s another deal underneath it: stay a little longer.
The snakes metaphor is one of those moments where a short film says a lot without showing off. Humans gather to keep warm, snakes cluster too, breeding, feeding on each other to survive. Connection as necessity, connection as danger, connection as the only way you don’t freeze to death. Pick your poison, basically.
Then Harion mentions he studied ballet. And suddenly the film has a pulse. Because ballet in this setting is not just a hobby. It’s softness. It’s vulnerability. It’s a past life where your body was allowed to be expressive, not just useful.
John asks to see him dance. Harion pushes back, teases, and the teasing lands exactly where it should: “Are you scared?” In a world where everything is about survival, the scariest thing is still intimacy.
That dance scene is the whole movie in miniature
There’s a brief, awkward, strangely tender little lesson. “Just go side.” “Now I’m dancing.” It’s almost funny, because John is so stiff and confused, like someone learning a new language with his whole body. But it’s also heartbreaking, because you can feel how long it’s been since anyone touched his life with anything other than duty.
The film doesn’t need a kiss to make you understand what’s happening. It uses proximity, breath, music, hesitation, and the way people look at each other when they’re trying not to want something.
Faith as control, faith as comfort
One of the strongest details is how often John folds into prayer. It’s not preachy. It feels like a coping mechanism. Like he’s building a fence around desire, around grief, around whatever he can’t name. In a traditional war story, the faith would be “strength.” Here, it’s more complicated: it’s strength, and it’s a lock.
And when Harion prepares to leave, it hits harder than it should, because the goodbye isn’t melodramatic. It’s polite. “It was good to meet you.” That line is brutal in a story where meeting someone is basically a miracle.
The title “Burrow” makes sense when the film goes quiet
After Harion leaves, the sound becomes everything. Panting, heat, crying, laughter that could be relief or madness, and that final pull: “Come with me.” The movie keeps it elliptical, which I respect. It doesn’t hand you a neat answer. It leaves you with a feeling: that John had been living underground for years, and the moment he stepped toward the light, it hurt.
Burrow is a small film with a big ache. Post-apocalyptic on the outside, deeply human on the inside. It’s about survival, yes, but the kind that doesn’t show up in action scenes: surviving yourself, your need, your tenderness, and the terrifying possibility that you might still be capable of warmth.
If you like short films that trust silence, and queer stories that don’t announce themselves with neon signs, this one will stick to you. Quietly. Like cold.
