horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apo ...
directed by Valeri Milev and written by Michael Hurst. It stars
Scott Adkins
Scott Edward Adkins (born 17 June 1976) is a British actor, film producer, screenwriter, gymnast, and martial artist. He is best known for his role as the Russian prison fighter Yuri Boyka in the ''Undisputed franchise''. He has played Yuri Boy ...
,
Bruce Payne
Bruce Martyn Payne (born 22 November 1958) is an English actor, producer, screenwriter, film director and theatre director. Payne is best known for portraying villains, such as Charles Rane in '' Passenger 57'', Jacob Kell in '' Highlander: End ...
, and
Daniella Alonso
Daniella Alonso is an American actress and former fashion model. She has appeared in a number of horror films, including '' The Hills Have Eyes 2'' and '' Wrong Turn 2: Dead End''. Alonso was a regular cast member in the NBC post-apocalyptic se ...
as members of paramilitary group tasked with hunting down and destroying zombies after an outbreak.
Plot
A young girl returns home to find her parents missing and the house in disarray. She sits down to watch television, and the news reveals that five years earlier, a zombie outbreak killed off 4.5 billion people worldwide, 10 million of which are from the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
. After detonating a nuclear bomb over
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
and walling off
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
, the U.S. government declared the outbreak over and established a paramilitary force known as R-Division to hunt down and destroy the remaining zombies. The girl watches a
reality TV
Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...
series called ''Re-Kill'' that broadcasts live footage of R-Division squads. Commercials interrupt the show, showing attempts to repopulate the United States and reassure the populace.
The show begins with a recap. An
embedded journalist
Embedded journalism refers to news journalist, reporters being attached to military units involved in armed conflicts. While the term could be applied to many historical interactions between journalists and military personnel, it first came to be u ...
rocket-propelled grenade
A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) is a shoulder-fired missile weapon that launches rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. Most RPGs can be carried by an individual soldier, and are frequently used as anti-tank weapons. These warheads are ...
to clear out the zombies. The truckers initially profess ignorance of their cargo but eventually confirm rumors of the Judas Project, a shadowy program rumored to be an experiment on the zombies trapped in New York City. Parker believes it to be a secret military project, but Sarge is more concerned with the possibility of a second outbreak, which he believes is inevitable due to human nature.
In the forbidden areas of New York City known as The Zone, they discover dead scientists and zombies who seem more intelligent. After an ambush, Omar insists that Parker was bit and demands they kill him. Before they kill him, Parker opens fire on the squad, killing Adams. Winston is wounded next, and he sacrifices himself with a grenade to allow the others to escape. In a previously recorded interview, he describes his belief that the government has secretly organized an ark for eligible survivors; he posthumously wishes the squad well and hopes they are accepted there. Deeper in the Zone, Hernandez is bitten and turns.
As the squad faces a horde of zombies, including Hernandez, a man who claims to be the last remaining member of the Judas Project leads them to safety. He explains the project was designed to turn the zombies against each other, but it instead revealed an alpha zombie, nicknamed Elvis, capable of leading a zombie army. Jimmy says the network's drones will pick up and broadcast his and Bobby's footage every two hours. As they perform reconnaissance, Bobby dies, alerting the zombie army. The squad flees, only to be overwhelmed by zombies and killed one-by-one with the only survivor being Rose, who manages to kill Elvis. As a special news report reveals zombie activity near the Zone and the start of a new outbreak, the young girl who was watching the program is revealed to have transformed into a zombie. Elsewhere, it is shown that the ark is real and soldiers, including Rose, discuss having found groups of survivors.
Cast
*
Scott Adkins
Scott Edward Adkins (born 17 June 1976) is a British actor, film producer, screenwriter, gymnast, and martial artist. He is best known for his role as the Russian prison fighter Yuri Boyka in the ''Undisputed franchise''. He has played Yuri Boy ...
as Trent Parker
*
Daniella Alonso
Daniella Alonso is an American actress and former fashion model. She has appeared in a number of horror films, including '' The Hills Have Eyes 2'' and '' Wrong Turn 2: Dead End''. Alonso was a regular cast member in the NBC post-apocalyptic se ...
as Rose Matthews
*
Bruce Payne
Bruce Martyn Payne (born 22 November 1958) is an English actor, producer, screenwriter, film director and theatre director. Payne is best known for portraying villains, such as Charles Rane in '' Passenger 57'', Jacob Kell in '' Highlander: End ...
as Alex Winston
*
Roger Cross
Roger Cross (born October 19, 1969) is a Jamaican-born Canadian actor who has made numerous appearances in several films and television series, mostly on productions shot in Canada. He is known for his work as CTU Agent Curtis Manning in the ...
as Sarge
*
Jesse Garcia
Jesse Garcia (born December 14, 1982) is an American actor.
Career
Garcia starred in the award-winning film ''Quinceañera'', written and directed by Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer with executive producer Todd Haynes, which won both t ...
as Omar Hernandez
*
Rocky Marshall
Rocky Marshall (born c.1967) is an English television and film actor, living near Battersea Park.
Biography
Rocky Marshall trained at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and was taught by Sam Kogan for the first 2 years there.
He has starred in ...
Raicho Vasilev
Raicho Vasilev ( bg, Райчо Василев) is a Bulgarian stunt/actor best known for his role Gladiator Gnaeus on the TV series '' Spartacus: Blood and Sand'' and its prequel '' Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.''
Biography
Raicho started h ...
as Elvis
* Dimiter Doichinov as "Grizzly" Adams
* Yo Santhaveesuk as Nguyen
* Randall Kamm as male anchor
* Cat Tomeny as news anchor
Production
The film is part of the eight film series After Dark Films Originals. The
After Dark Horrorfest
After Dark Horrorfest (also known as "8 Films to Die For") was an annual horror film festival featuring eight independent horror movies, sometimes with "secret" bonus films, all distributed by After Dark Films in the USA. The first HorrorFest ...
8 Films to Die For
After Dark Horrorfest (also known as "8 Films to Die For") was an annual horror film festival featuring eight independent horror movies, sometimes with "secret" bonus films, all distributed by After Dark Films in the USA. The first HorrorFest ...
brand and
After Dark Films
After Dark Films is an American independent film production and distribution company founded by Courtney Solomon and Allan Zeman in 2006.
History
The company is the organizer for the annual independent horror film festival ''After Dark Horr ...
produced in cooperation with
Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian- American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquarter ...
and
NBC Universal
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
's Syfy. Principal photography began in July 2010 in
Sofia, Bulgaria
Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and ha ...
, and was directed by
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Mac ...
n filmmaker Valeri Milev.
Release
It was released by
Lionsgate
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian- American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquarter ...
Bloody Disgusting
Bloody Disgusting is an American multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news site/website specializing in information services that covered various horror medias, including: film, television, video games, comics, and music ...
rated it 3/5 stars and wrote that although the film's premise of a zombie-hunting reality TV show is new, the components of the film have been done before. Torfe said the commercials enhance the
verisimilitude
In philosophy, verisimilitude (or truthlikeness) is the notion that some propositions are closer to being true than other propositions. The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be clos ...
but break the flow of the film. Ari Drew of
Dread Central
Dread Central is an American website founded in 2006 that is dedicated to horror news, interviews, and reviews. It covers horror films, comics, novels, and toys. Dread Central has won the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Website ...
rated it 2/5 stars and wrote that the film should have focused more on the tone used in the satirical commercials rather than repetitive and clichéd scenes of zombie fighting. Mark L. Miller of
Ain't It Cool News
Ain't It Cool News (AICN) is an entertainment news website founded by Harry Knowles and run by his sister Dannie Knowles since September 2017, dedicated to news, rumors, and reviews of upcoming and current films, television, and comic book proje ...
wrote, "While there are some decent scenes of gore and zombie terror, it just seems so unoriginal and tired."