Matthew B
I personally consider this film to be a hidden gem within the zombie genre, and I think anyone who says this is "the same thing you've seen before" is being hideously dishonest. This film explores a LOT of the beginning of the zombie outbreak which is something zombie fans on average LOVE, but is rarely explored for more than a few minutes by filmmakers. We spend more than half of this film with our protagonists quarantined to their house by the military after a deadly virus starts to spread around a quiet town. Little is actually said about the virus and we don't really see any zombies until the final act of the film which creates a VERY tense and uncomfortable atmosphere. When we do finally see an infected up close in good lighting, it creates an extremely unnerving reveal which is probably one of my favorite monster reveals of all time, at least within the zombie genre. This film takes a somewhat realistic approach and I personally believe it is somewhat accurate to what would take place in real life... media censorship, martial law and the subsequent failure to contain the virus, it's all very grounded and makes the film feel that much more relatable. ESPECIALLY after going through covid-19 and the events it caused back in 2020. It's not perfect by any means, there are some moments here and there that remind you it's a horror movie. For example, the girl across the street deciding to have sex just moments after waking up to her mothers corpse being on top of her... or the family fighting over and refusing to help their neighbors across the street out of fear of the infection and dwindling rations... just to let some random battered strange woman into their house with little questions. I also think it's questionable that both the father AND his friend have rifles but when they go out to "survey the area" only one brings a firearm. Seems maybe a crowbar isn't really appropriate protection when you have a hunting rifle sitting at home. You could argue he left it for his son to use in case of emergency, but when him and his mother go outside to look for the little girl he brings a baseball bat. So what happened to the other rifle? Did they eat it? Not to mention going outside, seeing someone's fresh innards splattered across the windshield of a STILL RUNNING vehicle, walking over dozens of corpses, being shot at by the military and having someone run in fear right past them would probably make most of us turn around and go right back where we came from... but nope, these guys just keep marching right towards the danger for some reason. Despite all of this, this is a quite competent zombie film and I'm quite surprised it's not brought up in discussion more. The pace and overall vibe quite reminds me of the video game "No Room In Hell"... so definitely check that out if you enjoy this. Recommended.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
10/07/24
Full Review
prawnda s
it's very well done, but some people might not like that there's very little action, and most of the violence takes place off screen. i think this aspect is tasteful and frugal, and that the limited budget hardly shows at all. it may not be anything to write home about, but it's a solid film.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
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Audience Member
Would have been a fairly good stab at a zombie movie except for the usual trope of idiot child/teenager gets everyone else killed and thereafter you only watch the film in the hope they'll show some recognition or remorse before ideally being killed horribly.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
02/20/23
Full Review
Audience Member
What a shame.
I had hoped for a good Danish horror film, but this did not deliver. It started promising with a great cold opening only to immediately ruin this by having its title screen actually be a try-hard, epilepsy-inducing jump scare. The juxtaposition between these two clips left me confused as to what tone the film was trying to establish. It did not improve when it became apparent that the main character of the film was not the one featured in this opening but was instead going to be a poorly written and poorly acted teenage boy, who (of course?) needs to have his own romance with the neighbor's teenage daughter so that we can have sex scenes with her and show her off as much as possible without leaving PG-territory. One may wonder why they bothered to have a poorly executed teenage romance in a zombie flick, but I guess they had it because they barely got any zombies. The zombies doesn't show up until the last 10 minutes of this 1 hour and 17 minutes-long film, actually. I assume they tried to build tension, but that doesn't work because we already know how zombies generally look like. I actually think it's more likely that they just didn't have a big enough budget for makeup to have zombies throughout. Also, I have a problem with them waiting so long to reveal zombies as I believe you can go about presenting your zombie story in one of two ways: either you start the story already being post the zombie apocalypse or you show the turn in full during the first 5-20 minutes or first act. This film is a miracle: it spends the entirety of it's runtime making its transition opposed to get it out of the way because it needs time for the teenage romance. The reason to why you get the transition to zombie apocalypse done relatively quickly is to show it as a natural disaster that cannot be stopped, as if it's interrupting the plot of the film itself. It may slowly build in the background until it infests the film completely. A film turning into a zombie film is meant to simulate the turn that happens to people becoming zombies. If you go slowly about this as they decided to do you fail at providing immediacy. This is the first problem while the second is that building up to showing zombies throughout the film puts too much emphasis on their presence. In a zombie film, zombies are not supposed to be the main focus of horror: while zombies are predictable and run on instincts, humans in critical situations are completely unpredictable. We know what happens if a zombie gets close to our main characters, but not what will happen if other humans gets close - will they be friendly or hostile? You focus on this relationship to ask how humans would react in stressed conditions. The zombies should function as a spectacle and constant reminder of danger to our characters, but we should be invested in the well-being of our main characters first in order for us to care. Done correctly, you can have your audience hooked whether type of media your zombie story appears as. I would even go as far to say you don't need zombies as movies like It Comes at Night proved to me. However, given the stale acting, the misguided understanding of our care in whether or not the unlikable teenager gets rewarded for his perverted interested in the teenage girl and the ridiculous cliches throughout (just because you are the first Danish zombie film it doesn't give you carte blanche at the buffet), this film failed at engaging me. You are not supposed to root for the death of your characters, as this film had me do. The Japanese proved that it's possible to make a fantastic zombie flick with a low budget with One Cut of the Dead, so it should be possible for Danes as well in time. This film provides nothing new to the table and fails at entertaining as intended.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
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Audience Member
How did this "Movie" get a better rating than World War Z? The taste in movies has gone downhill faster than most Hollywood actor's careers.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/03/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The film is most certainly not genre defining, but introduces some interesting scenaros in the event our friends and neighbors go zombie as well as a reward for climax for those patient enough to stay for it.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/16/23
Full Review
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