Director: Steven Pierce
Year: 2023
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Zombie
Plot:
Hoping to rebuild their fractured relationship, a woman and her girlfriend head off into the countryside for a weekend retreat, but when they come into contact with a zombie virus that affects one of them must turn to an equally dangerous militia group for safety against the hordes of undead.
Review:
Overall, this was somewhat disappointing if still a decent enough effort. The main thing with this one is the rather focused use of the zombies here which is what generates nearly all of the positives here. The backstory for why they're out and about is fine enough for this kind of feature, and when given the behavioral adjustments where they seem fine and not that harmful to others unless they're provoked generates the kind of effective creature here even before getting to their impressive design. The overall look of the creatures with their snarling faces and growing pustules makes for a fun time so the main attack scenes here are highly effective and enjoyable swarming scenes that are full of solid stunt work where they come after others and generate some grisly effects in the interim. While this is all heavily featured in the first half and last third of the film, that's pretty much the majority of the positives to be had here.
There are some issues here that lower this one overall. One of the main drawbacks here is the film's seemingly overwhelming amount of stupidity exhibited by the leads which keep this going along. The whole thing offering the trip as a means of keeping their relationship intact serves as an excuse to keep the secret about the rapidly-spreading infection from her girlfriend away from others due to some narrow-minded commitment to the relationship instead of thinking about the safety of the group around her for no real reason. This is exacerbated by the wholly uninvolved series of bits beforehand where they seem perfectly aware of everything at the start but their strange fascination with the relationship instead puts them into the fray so that they become infected when around others. This causes a wholly unlikable situation to occur here with the leads being very unlikable and not at all that fun to follow throughout here.
The other issue here is the film's wholly reliant ability to utilize some of the most egregious and overdone tropes in the genre as a means of trying to tell a story that isn't all that impressive. The characters being part of the gay community is really the only interesting fact of the film but it's all wiped away by the increasingly unnatural use of the characters going more for a fear-of-man situation that gets played out quite quickly since it's a feature of every zombie effort. Using the idea of man as the more fearsome enemy in the face of zombies invading is tired, cliched, and really grinds the film to a halt with the use of these features which have very little zombie action in favor of draining dialogue scenes reinforcing these factors. That ends up causing the film to be quite disappointingly absent of zombie features at the expense of irritating characters and genre tropes so it's got some big factors holding it back.
Overview: *.5/5
An overall disappointing effort with only a few positives to be had here, there's only a few features keeping this one up over those drawbacks which leave this as low as it is. Those who are fine with those elements or are hardcore zombie fanatics will be the main source for this one while most others out there who are turned off by these factors should heed caution if not outright avoid it.
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