''Descendents'' (also ''Solos'' in Chile) is a 2008 Chilean experimental

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

directed by

Jorge Olguín Jorge Mario Olguín (born 17 May 1952 in Dolores, Buenos Aires) is a retired Argentine footballer who played as a defender. He played for Argentina when the team won 1978 World Cup. Since his retirement as a player he has managed a number of ...

, written by Carolina García and Olguín, and starring Camille Lynch. Lynch plays a young child who attempts to cross a land divided by brutal fights between the military and roving

zombie A zombie (Haitian French: ; ; Kikongo: ''zumbi'') is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies appear in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folkl ...

Plot

After a virus causes a

zombie apocalypse Zombie apocalypse is a subgenre of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction in which society collapses due to overwhelming swarms of zombies. Usually, only a few individuals or small bands of human survivors are left living. There are many d ...

, the military engages in brutal warfare against the roving zombies. Young mutants, who are immune to both the virus and the zombies, band together and attempt to escape the violence. Camille, the oldest child, expects to find a safe haven by the coast, and she leads several younger children through the land, where they must avoid bloodthirsty soldiers who mistake them for zombies. During the journey, flashbacks reveal background information about Camille and her mother.

Cast

* Camille Lynch as Camille * Karina Pizarro as Camille's mother * Christobal Barra as boy * Carolina Andrade as girl

Production

Director

shot ''Descendents'' while he was waiting for his next project, '' Caleuche: The Call of the Sea''. His first English-language film, Olguín cast the film after looking for English-speaking actors for ''Caleuche''. It was shot in seven days. ''Descendents'' is billed as the first Chilean zombie film.

Release

''Descendents'' premiered at the

Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival The Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFFF), previously named Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film (, ) was created in 1983 as a venue for horror, thriller and science fiction films. It takes place in Brussels, eve ...

on April 7, 2008. It received a theatrical release in Chile on October 16, 2008.

Lionsgate Films Lionsgate Films (spelled as Lions Gate until 2005, and formerly Cinépix Film Properties until 1998) is a Canadian-American film production and distribution company founded in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on June 15, 1962. It was owned by Lionsga ...

released it on DVD in the United States on May 15, 2012.

Reception

William Harrison of

DVD Talk DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman. History Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...

rated it 1/5 stars and wrote, "Repetitive, confusing and boring, Descendents is a waste of time." Gordon Sullivan of

DVD Verdict DVD Verdict was a judicial-themed website for DVD reviews. The site was founded in 1999. The editor-in-chief was Michael Stailey, who owned the website between 2004 and 2016, and the site employed a large editorial staff of critics, whose revie ...

called it "an impressive zombie flick" whose execution does not live up to its ambition or vision. Devon Ashby of

CraveOnline Mandatory (formerly CraveOnline Media) is a lifestyle website based in Los Angeles with sales offices in New York City, Chicago and San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial D ...

rated it 2/10 stars and wrote, "''Descendents'' awkwardly unconventional execution and overreliance on child performers gives it an unfinished, diffuse quality that tragically disappoints rather than inspiring." Marc Patterson of Brutal As Hell called it "smartly made and quite stunning to watch" but said that it eventually becomes boring, unsubtle, and superficial.

Peter Dendle Peter Dendle is a professor of English at Penn State Mont Alto, teaching classes on folklore, 20th and 21st century representations of the Middle Ages, Old and Middle English (language and literature), and the monstrous (in film, folklore, and ...

wrote, "Despite its limitations, the movie uniquely situates the infected against an unforgettable, anemic world, one saturated throughout with sickness and veiled in pale ochre."

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 1361838 2008 films 2008 independent films 2000s science fiction horror films Chilean independent films Films shot in Chile Post-apocalyptic films 2000s monster movies Chilean zombie films 2000s English-language films English-language Chilean films English-language science fiction horror films English-language independent films