The Dead Outside (2008) User Reviews

An honest attempt, but seriously flawed

[yeah_sure · 4/10 · 12 April 2010]

A small budget, a few unknown actors, a secluded farm, a global epidemic that turns people into violent lunatics. It COULD work. But it doesn't.

The script has serious problems: it moves too slowly, and ultimately goes nowhere. We have the troubled guy, and the troubled girl. Both have issues. They have to depend on each other to survive, while overcoming their ghosts. All this is established early on, but dragged through ineffective flashbacks and poor dialogue, for far too long.

The infected are too few and far between, and never seem like a real menace. Two people with a crappy rifle and some barbed wire manage to fend them off easily. The doors and windows aren't even reinforced. Most of the time, they could as easily be there on (a very very boring) vacation, rather than in the middle of a world apocalypse.

The characters are not interesting. The guy is dull and clueless. The girl is always annoyed AND annoying. The other girl is just as dull as the guy, and doesn't bring anything new. Their past stories should give us new insights about them, but don't. The (possible) immunity subplot is never properly explored, or settled. Its just thrown in for the sake of it, like too many things in the movie.

Overall, "The Dead Outside" does have some upsides (for a post-apocalyptic movie) - a sense of isolation and lack of hope, a few (very few) mild scares, and the cinematography isn't great, but its watchable. But by the end, you're wondering which is worse: being infected, or being a part of this sad, boring bunch.

Even grading on the zombie apocalypse curve, this thing is still horrible!

[MBunge · 3/10 · 29 July 2011]

Some movies are so bad you can't help but wonder what the hell the filmmakers ever though they were doing. After watching The Dead Outside, I can only picture Kerry Anne Mullaney and Kris R. Bird sitting in an empty room and having the following conversation...

"Let's make a movie like 28 Days Later, except we'll pick up the story long after all the exciting stuff has happened and just have the characters stand around and mumble to each other."

"You're a genius! But let's also not explain any of the particular details of the story, fill it with fragmentary flashbacks to further muddle things up and then have a character lie on a sofa and describe the plot of what would essentially be a prequel to the film we're actually going to make."

"I like where you're going but let's also have the storytelling and filmmaking get worse as the movie goes along. The dialog should become more insipid, the performances should go from minimalistic to practically coma-inducing, pieces of the plot should start to fall off like the film has leprosy and the editing must turn completely into crap."

"The more you talk, the more excited I get about this project! I also think there needs to be an important scene where the soundtrack is so loud that no can understand what the actors are saying."

"I couldn't agree more. It's like the two of us have only one brain!"

After a neurological outbreak in Scotland which turned people into murderous, retarded hoboes, Daniel (Alton Milne) runs out of gas on the road and must take shelter in a seemingly deserted farmhouse which turns out to be the home of April (Sandra Louise Douglas). They sort of hang out and have dueling flashbacks to much more interesting periods in their lives until another person shows up. Kate (Sharon Osdin) seems about to drive a wedge between the deeply f'd up April and the whiny Daniel, then the Almighty Plot Hammer pounds Kate into the ground like a circus tent pole and the whole thing sputters to an ending that will leave you staring at the screen and wondering "Wait. Where did that come from?"

This cinematic stinkburger is spoiled at the most basic of levels. Let me give you an example. A big plot point of The Dead Outside is that April is supposedly immune to whatever is turning folks into violent and unhygenic vagrants. However, the script never bothers to explain what is infecting people or how they get infected. The big revelation of April's immunity is in a scene where she's been handling the bodies of some infected dead and gotten their blood on her. But at no point is it established that the virus or whatever is transmitted through the blood. So, when April turns to face the camera with blood on her, this film is going "Ah ha!" while the audience is going "Uh…what?"

After suffering through this thing, I decided to indulge my masochism and flipped over to the DVD extras to watch the trailer. I was expecting to see one of those trailers where you can tell the movie is going to suck, but this one kicked 37 different varieties of ass. It makes The Dead Outside look complex, dynamic and unnerving, which is about as big a miracle as Jesus doing that whole bread and fish thing. The person who made this trailer should have made the film instead. If Mullaney and Bird actually made it, they should be paid extremely well to create trailers for other movies but never allowed to make another motion picture themselves.

The zombie apocalypse genre doesn't exactly have the highest standards, but this dishwater dull production can't even make it over that very low bar. Don't bother with The Dead Outside.

FAR FROM THE MADDENING CROWD

[nogodnomasters · 4/10 · 31 December 2018]

The film has a zombie feel to it. Daniel(Alton Milne) is fleeing infected humans in his Volvo when it runs out of gas in the Scottish countryside. He manages to make his way to a farmhouse where there is a young woman and nurse (Sandra Louise Douglas) who has managed to survive the viral outbreak. She is a tough cookie who shoots first and doesn't need to ask questions.

She has a past that is explored in flashbacks. Daniel is not as tough as her. The film examines the psychological aspect of a "zombie" killer, someone who might be a bit insane to begin with. Then another woman shows up who Daniel does not want to kill. The film uses flashbacks and dreams, but not effectively. Ho-hum. A bit lame.

Parental Guide: F-bombs. No sex or nudity.

The Boredom On Screen

[mike_goyert604 · 22 August 2011]

I saw this titled in the movie store with a few festival nods printed on the front and thought it might be a good, indie, low-budget watch. How wrong I was. The writing/story, or lack there of, is drawn out, packed with dialogue that is there for the sake of having dialogue and allows for no surprises. This is fine because the repetitive score is, more often than not, drowning out the actors thick accents. We are supposed to invest ourselves in a meandering, rarely-active protagonist and a grumpy, tweaked out young lady who occasionally allows a small detail about her past to slip. Other than that, the story is told mostly through randomly placed flashbacks or when the characters directly explain their pasts to one another in one on one chats. The cinematography is clunky, jarring, and while the location is beautiful in a 'barren-farm-hills' sort of way, it becomes tiring, recycled and bleak. Any action sequences are too dark to see and the 'dead' are really just rambling, raving infected people who can't seem to climb fences, or pose any real threat at all. I tried to love this movie, then I tried even harder to like it, and as my last resort I attempted to see it as a minimalist film, but even that failed tremendously. The only aspect of this movie that I can give credit to is the overwhelmingly bleak and isolated tone it creates. But then again, that could have just been in my head as the credits rolled after what can only be described as a bad film.

A bad movie is a bad movie and nothing about this flick escapes that label.

A movie with a vision, but ultimatily ends up as a homage to 28 Days Later.

[mamboboy · 5/10 · 8 March 2010]

*SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS* *SPOILERS*

I thought this flick was 'average'. Not bad at all for it's budget, but it has some big flaws.

No originality at all: The soundtrack sounds almost as if it was taken straight from 28 Days/Weeks later. There's nothing to bad in this, but it just makes you constantly remember that you are watching something that's not even in the same league.

Overacting: The male lead was decent enough, but I found the two females really irritating. The main female overacts WAY too much, and to make it worse she acts like a 13 year old sulking because she can't have the new Miley Cyrus DVD. Put yourself in the characters situation - knowing that you are possibly the only cure for the disease, the only hope for mankind's survival...yet you choose to be alone and isolated in a farm house somewhere. Eventually the bullets/generator will run out and you are done! There's one scene where she's recalling what her grandparents did and it was painful to watch. Almost as if the character was supposed to have some mental deficiency, or actually supposed to be around 13 years old? The other female was a slightly better actress, but it just felt like she was in the wrong movie here. Actually, none of the cast really gelled together, which was what made it so uninteresting to watch.

The way it was shot: I, quite frankly, got sick of the 'artsy' shots being filmed at a slight angle. The director filled the alarming lack of dialogue with constant shots of chickens, planks of wood, trees, fences (whilst slowly zooming in to the background), or the dog barking - which was a pointless 'part' of the film, as they even forget to take him at the end. Take out those parts and the film would have struggled to reach 50 minutes.

The story: We get flashbacks of the males history, yet it's ultimately totally irreverent, as it leads to nothing. We get told toward the start that the drug he's taking only prolongs the infection to make it worse, so surely you'd have to end the movie with him 'turning'? Nope, we get the movie ending with the girl looking as annoyed as ever, and the guy just going into a house and shooting somebody. Earlier on he says something along the lines of "I could never become one of those vigilantes, it's sick". Errr? The infected also still seem to be able to think rationally and be quite coherent, so the barb wire to keep them out obviously shouldn't work, as I assume they'd be quite capable of walking up to the gate and opening it? if it was so affective, then why not just put more where the gate was smashed down by the van and stay at the farm house?

I give it 5/10. Watch-able, but not something I'd end up recommending, or watching again.

A Poor Man's 28 Days Later...

[fastfoodi · 4/10 · 14 March 2010]

Completely derivative, and not very rewarding. Although the talent of the filmmakers involved is evident, they sabotage themselves by working with completely empty content. Badly written, badly acted and repetitive, the film failed to justify its running time. THE DEAD OUTSIDE works for about 15 minutes, after which its lack of momentum makes it hard to sit through. I suspect it would probably have made a good short film, however.

It has been mentioned that the film "expects a lot from its audience", but this isn't quite true. There was far too much exposition in some scenes. The characters and their stories are simply not very interesting. It's a common thing to see in an indie, but the extent to which bad acting can weigh down even a good script *cannot* be overstated. I'm sure THE DEAD OUTSIDE will be the cast and crew's ticket to bigger/better things, but as a cinema experience it simply is not up to par.

I'll try and contextualize my score by listing scores for the last couple of indies I've seen:

RULE OF THREE (Eric Shapiro). Good acting for an indie. Reasonably good Script. Terribly shot, terrible music. 5/10

INK (Jamin Winans). Some pretty good ideas, hugely ambitious and elaborate production. Weak execution and bad acting. 5/10

SHALLOW GROUND (Sheldon Wilson). A bloody mess. Nonsensical plot. An exercise in pointlessness. 3/10

THE DEAD OUTSIDE (Kerry Anne Mullaney). A technically competently lensed film, but lacking any real focus or originality. Badly acted, boring script, repetitive sound design. 4/10

Avoid this at all costs

[Sergao88 · 1/10 · 18 March 2010]

Written by Kris R. Bird and Kerry Anne Mullaney Directed by Kerry Anne Mullaney Featuring Sandra Louise Douglas, Alton Milne, Sharon Osdin 2009 – Scotland

Its that story we've heard before – a virus runs rampant, affecting most of the population. It either turns you into a maniac or a living virus carrier. Either way you're doomed. Individuals who have escaped getting infected band together and try to survive while dealing with the breakdown of civilization, society, and their own relationships. The Dead Outside, feature debut of Kerry Anne Mullaney, is set in the bleak, desolate frigid rocky landscape of rural Scotland. As if living in a hellhole like Scotland wasn't enough, survivors Daniel and April must also contend with weird wandering lunatics who have had their brains turned into mush by the infection. The infected are unpredictable, violent, and angry...

Daniel runs out of gas on a lonely road in farm-happy countryside in the aftermath of the horrific epidemic that has made crazy folk of everyone. Unhappily, he goes on foot to the nearest farm house, where he meets April – a scared, angry young woman who isn't afraid of using her shotgun on anyone who tries to jump the barb-wire protection she's erected on top of the stone wall surrounding the farm. She's all alone, and even once she sees that Daniel is one of the uninfected, she's reluctant to let him inside the confines of her enclosure. But she does.

Eking an existence from chicken eggs, chopped firewood, and digging futility at the muddy Scotland horse-manure ground that passes as soil, Daniel and April spend frenetic days not really getting to know each other better, but without any other options.

Unfortunately the actors themselves suffer from what I call 'watching my sister act syndrome' where I'm very aware that they are putting on a performance. That said, other people don't suffer from it when watching my sister and it may be the Scottish accent that I notice more (I'm Scottish).

Avoid this at all costs

Nice try...atmospheric but dull slog through the dead

[payerway-401-322773 · 3/10 · 19 June 2012]

I went into this film knowing nothing about it but the description in Netflix. It starting out promising with an eerie, engaging introduction of the main characters and their situation. The mood was intense and the images surreal. However, at the 45 minute mark, I started to lose my patience as the plot stubbornly refused to progress. After an hour, finishing the film had become a gauntlet and done only out of spite. The ominous music cues kept promising something that was never delivered. The actors may have uttered some interesting lines but if they did I certainly couldn't understand them. I like a grim, bleak glimpse of the future as much as the next guy but the storytellers are still responsible for propelling the action forward whether it is physical or psychological. And one final note on the soundtrack: As noted elsewhere, the soundtrack drowned out the dialogue throughout much of the film. No matter how loud I put it, I couldn't make out the actors lines because the music was louder. Regardless of budget, that is inexcusable. Ultimately, a nice try that wore out its welcome half way through.

Aimless Flashback - The Movie!

[splunge42-1 · 2/10 · 28 November 2012]

This might have been a decent character-driven film, if any of the characters were interesting or likable.

But, the trio of main characters are dull, listless, and depressing.

It often feels like you're missing part of the movie. The interesting parts. Or the parts with the plot.

And then there are the constant and annoying flashbacks. They're done in such a way that they;re hard to follow and do little to advance the plot or give us any real interest in the characters.

I understand that this is supposed to be a mood movie, but the characters and their motivations seem implausible at best and unbelievable at worst, the plot is nearly non-existent, and what little suspense coupled be achieved is lost from poor direction and pacing.

Avoid this one.

Indie horror gem

[julessimmond · 7/10 · 2 March 2009]

While I must admit that I wasn't expecting much, this film turned out pretty good! Story was more complex and psychological than I expected. Left me wondering how such a low-budget effort could resonate more than the last 5 big-budget films I've watched combined. The ending in most films lets them down, there's nothing worse than a bad ending. Dead Outside pulled out all the stops and tied it all up with a bow, great little atmospheric film. Oddly creepy at times with them surviving in the old run down farmhouse, waiting for something bad to happen. This film is similar to The Fog in its atmosphere of dread but set in the Scottish Borderlands.. with the infected acting as the backdrop for the narrative.. and some ghosts for good measure! Haunting and well worth a watch.

Waste of time

[billcr12 · 3/10 · 4 April 2012]

The dead outside is, as the title implies, not a comedy filled with mirth and good cheer; instead it is a horror saga set in Scotland at a farm in the countryside.

The makers have obviously watched George Romero's classic Night of the living dead. A virus of some unknown origin has turned the happy people into blood sucking zombies; how original.

A completely unknown cast speaking with thick cockney sounding accents run away from each other and scream frequently.

Writer-director Kerry Anne Mullaney has absolutely no sense of humorous or wit. Avoid the dead outside and find something better to spend 86 minutes doing.

Bleak House—The Dead Outside provides a better than average post-apocalyptic siege scenario

[Big Man-6 · 8/10 · 16 June 2009]

The first feature from music video director Kerry Anne Mullaney exists in world even bleaker and farther north than 28 Days Later, and a little deeper inside the art house. The director makes a benefit of the lack of finance, with gritty visuals and an excellent performance from Sandra Louise Douglas (in her first role), as April, a girl soaked in horror, whose anger may have more meaning than mere teenage angst. The two lead characters exist on opposite sides of a moral divide—Daniel, a good man who still sees the infected as human beings, is haunted (it seems literally in a couple of scenes), by what he couldn't bring himself to do, whereas April shoots on sight, and is almost catatonic from the things she has seen, the people she has lost, and those she has killed. Shot in two weeks, and self-financed on a micro budget, which is hardly an issue, the production team of Mullaney and producer/co-scripter/cameraman Kris R Bird (who together created promos for Drive-By Argument and Cosmic Rough Riders), demand a lot from their audience, which is refreshing in an age where the horror film seems designed to evoke nothing beyond revulsion, and their debut shows immense promise. Add another strong, intelligent team to the new league of British horror auteurs. Stick through the final titles to hear the excellent "Evacuate" by indie upstarts The Boxer Rebellion.

Not as bad as all that!

[LuvzHorror · 6/10 · 13 September 2011]

Reading some of these reviews it seems like some other reviewers just want to add big words to make themselves look like they're some kind of 'serious' movie know-it-all. Gimme a break!

This film was made in 2 weeks on a £4,000 budget. Those 2 snippets of info should have been a bit of a hint at what kind of production this was gonna be. Yeah the story runs along the lines of 28 Days Later, so what? It's not as if 28 Days Later was the first film to use the virus/living dead scenario, and I doubt this will be the last.

The story is a simple one. Virus on the loose, survivors hiding in an attempt to stay alive. If you're looking for a blood soaked zombie flick then pass on this and pick up Dawn Of The Dead. If you're looking for an indie flick that focuses more on the psychological horror of the survivor's situation then you'll enjoy this. OK it's not gonna win any Oscars, but hey, neither did The Shawshank Redemption!

Amateur hour

[Leofwine_draca · 1/10 · 7 February 2016]

THE DEAD OUTSIDE is probably the worst non-zombie zombie film I've had to sit through in recent years. It's a real dog's dinner of a film, shot on zero budget and in a hurry, and it has no story or sense of intrigue or mystery or suspense to propel it along. Any incident that occurs during the movie is ruined by incessant shaky-cam work that means when stuff finally happens, you can't see it happening anyway.

The film is about a couple of people holed up in a remote Scottish farmhouse after an epidemic of sorts. It sounds a bit 28 DAYS LATER-ish, but it's nothing like that or any of the other zombie movies made recently. It's just two dull-beyond-belief characters and somebody filming them with a camcorder. The acting is non-existent, the script lacks creativity, and the whole thing is a waste of time from beginning to end. It's not often that I feel angry after watching a movie for having had my time wasted, but I did so in this instance.

The boring Scottish apocalypse

[sebpopcorn · 27 October 2010]

Scotland is full of angry people in poor health. No, not a quote from the Scottish tourist board website but the premise for this dreadful talky movie. Anyway, there's some kind of virus that's turned most people mental. You'll note straight away that there are no 'dead' as the title might suggest, certainly no traditional zombies. Instead you get shouting people who are nowhere near as entertaining and certainly never present a credible threat. So, no zombies in this one.

There's no action either, but if you're a fan of wobbling camera angles and flashbacks you're going to get your moneys worth here. This really is a dull movie, nothing really happens for an hour and the finale isn't interesting either. If that wasn't enough the acting is generally poor and the bleak colourless scenery gets tiresome pretty quickly.

A Confusing Zombie Film

[Uriah43 · 3/10 · 8 March 2022]

Six months after a horrible virus has decimated the United Kingdom and turned its victims into crazed zombies, a young man named "Daniel" (Alton Milne) drives to a deserted house in Scotland to take refuge for the night. However, when he wakes up the next morning, he finds himself staring down the barrel of a rifle held by a woman by the name of "April" (Sandra Louise Douglas). Realizing that this woman means business, he quickly apologizes and, to his relief, she allows him to stay on one more day before hitting the road again. Although he finds that she is both angry and aloof, he manages to convince her to allow him to stay a little longer and its during this time that they begin to understand each other a little better due in large part to the personal tragedies each of them have recently been through. Unfortunately, things become much more complicated when another uninfected person named "Kate" (Sharon Osdin) shows up and changes the dynamic to a degree that neither of them expected. Now, although the overall plot was hardly unique, I thought that this film might have some potential based, in part. On where it was filmed. Sadly, this was not to be the case as the director (Kerry Anne Mullaney) failed to give any of the actors a coherent script and instead chose to use a series of garbled flashbacks to reveal key aspects. Needless to say, I don't think this was a good decision by any stretch of the imagination. Not only that, but the ending was much too vague and could have used considerable clarification as well. That being said, I don't consider this to be a good film and I have rated it accordingly. Below average.

---

[blackshooter-63065 · 1/10 · 27 April 2020]

Very bad. It doesn't get any more boring. The characters are totally uninteresting. The story is just as uninteresting. Shall it be a horror movie? It doesn't look like that. 1/10 *

Say What?

[Eradan · 1/10 · 3 April 2019]

"The Dead Outside" has no subtitles which is a problem because the three main characters all have Scottish accents so deep, they're effectively speaking a whole different dialect from mainstream English. To make it worse, the soundtrack is so loud it often drowns out the characters' grumbling, growling Scottish burrs. Between the soundtrack and the foreign dialect, I missed roughly a third of the script.

As if the incomprehensible dialogue wasn't bad enough, the movie's editing was equally obscure. Much of the action (what little there is) occurs at night and is often difficult to make out. To make it worse, there are constant flashbacks and dream sequences which are not clearly differentiated from the events occurring in the present.

As if the incomprehensible dialogue and choppy editing weren't bad enough, the plot is all over the place. All three of the characters do a lot of weird things that make little sense. The male lead, Daniel, may or may not be infected with the virus that turns people into zombies; the female lead, April, may or may not be mentally ill (I vote yes) and the bizarre behavior of the third wheel, Kate, is never explained at all.

I am amazed so many people liked this. My rating is '1' and I'm throwing the dvd out. Not selling it or giving it away... THROWING IT OUT

Decent Indie Flick....with HORRIBLE editing!

[lindsaytomcat · 7/10 · 12 June 2013]

Really this movie wasn't nearly as bad as some of the reviewers are saying...(It's not as bad as, let's say, Birdemic or something like that) It's a pandemic type movie but really more of an atmospheric thriller that just uses as pandemic as the background.

My main issue with the movie was the editing - it was so poor and left a lot of things scratching your head. As an example, in one scene one of the main characters is kidnapped while one sleeps. It literally cuts from that to the sleeping character going out looking for her. It doesn't show him waking up, or hearing something that wakes him up, or him realizing what had happened and freaking out.

There were a lot of similar gaps that unfortunately made the movie hard to understand in some parts. I'm assuming the director wants the audience to simply infer certain things about the plot and tried to use flashbacks to parlay important pieces of information regarding the back story, but it was done too choppily and poorly for that to work.

However, overall it is still a decent movie. I love horror flms but the zombie genre has pretty much died out for me, and I appreciated that this was a pandemic style movie that really took it in its own direction.

It's probably really worth a 6/10, but I felt bad looking at some of the other poor reviews so I gave it a 7/

Inside out

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 29 January 2009]

Bear in mind, if you haven't watched this movie, that we're talking about a mean, low-budget, in your face little movie. You won't have seen the actors before (unless you know them personally) and there is nothing "fancy" to be found here, neither in the camera work, nor in the story department.

But it works for the movie. Not bloody, but suspenseful and with a dramatic story, that tries to stay as real as it can be (with a story like that). The actors do a good job, carrying the job, which plays mostly at one location. It might be slow at times (or might seem not moving story-wise), but it really is good, if you let yourself immerse in it.

Pretty good indie horror

[slake09 · 7/10 · 22 May 2010]

This is one of the better low budget horror movies I've seen. The plot has been covered elsewhere, I'll just mention what I liked about it. The whole film is story and character, with plenty to spare. The characters are interesting, the story is original. You can get into this movie, feel for the characters, wonder what might happen next. They obviously didn't spend a lot of money on it, but they did use some talent and it shows.

I would, and probably will, watch this again. It's good enough to play in the local theater and make some money. There are a lot of big-budget Hollywood types who should watch this and see what it does right.

A minimalist review for an effective minimalist film.

[oneguyrambling · 6/10 · 19 November 2010]

Britain: 6 months after outbreak. Virus.

An unnamed guy. Alone. On foot.

Abandoned farmhouse. Barricades. Barbed wire. Traps. Bodies.

Real occupant arrives. Big f*cking gun. "Yer out tomorrow." Intros: "Daniel". "April".

The unnamed virus. Huge numbers infected. Can talk. Run. Causes paranoia & rage. Frantic & desperate. Confused... Aggressive.

Infected and scared look the same...

Sleep. Nightmares. Flashbacks. Wife & kid. Daniel alone... now.

A change of heart: "You ken stay." Semi-normal existence. Always on edge. Neither fully trusting.

April - Determined. Afraid. Will survive at all costs. Has secrets... Dark secrets.

Daniel - Principled. Aghast. Terrified. Doesn't understand yet. Drugs ward off effects. Don't they? A newcomer. Uninfected? "Kate." April dubious. Better safe than sorry. Infected and scared look the same.

April: "Don't tell Kate my secret!" Daniel tells Kate...

Shouldn't have.

Small film. Smaller budget. Broody windswept soundtrack. Minimal gore, makeup & FX. Serious in tone.

Credible effort. Nothing given or spelled out. (Accents often hard to understand.)

Final Rating - 6.5 / 10. Has flaws, yet still effective. My opinion. Don't like it? Suck it.

If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com

The best zombie film of the past 30 years

[Ore-Sama · 8/10 · 28 October 2015]

Those with short attention spans and no appreciation for minimalism will balk at this film, which is probably why it has a laughable 4.3 rating (as of this review). However, as a huge fan of zombie films, I think this one is criminally underrated and for those with an appreciation for something more challenging, "The Dead Outside" delivers.

The premise is dirt simple: Danielle, a man who recently lost his wife and child in this national zombie epidemic, finds an empty house on his travels. He stops in for a bit and is discovered by a teenage girl named April, who has survived their on her own for many years.

The film mostly follows them in their time living together. It's a typical dynamic on paper, with Danielle being more humane and not wanting to kill the zombies, while April has no hesitation in killing them. While Danielle is fairly calm and collected, April is volatile and paranoid. Their dialogue and interaction are realistic and nuanced. Nothing feels cliché or forced here, and even the revelation of April's back story, which could've easily been over the top, is well done.

The pacing is slow and methodical. Many smaller moments, such as Danielle taking a shower when the lights go out, or April chopping wood, adds to the feeling that we're watching life unfold rather than a traditional movie. It's helped by the camera work, almost always close in, adding to the intimacy and intensity. Combined with the beautiful but foggy and desolate setting, creates a gripping atmosphere.

The film builds into one of the most intense climaxes in a zombie film since "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie", and when it was over, I wished that the film would go on longer. Not for any kind of loose ends left, but simply to see it continue.

Highly recommended, especially if you're looking for something a bit different.

Clearing up some things.

[eggonabull · 8/10 · 23 June 2012]

* spoilers * * spoilers * * spoilers*

Imagine you were infected with a virus that made you go crazy.

The flashbacks are not pointless, nor is the vaccine. Daniel said "I'm showing signs." He wouldn't show April his mouth. He was taking the vaccine. Daniel thought he had caught the infection, and, given the crazy flashbacks he underwent every night, how could you blame him? The fear that Daniel had already been infected creates part of the drama of the movie. When he stops taking the vaccine, we learn he hasn't been infected. These scenes help the viewer understand why Daniel acts so "clueless" (he wasn't clueless; he was just afraid for himself).

The scene at the end may seem out of nowhere, but a little thought can resolve what Daniel and April are doing. They both suffer from the memories of their past; they're traumatized. They started looking for a house without so many painful memories attached to it. They drive off because what we see Daniel do in that house makes it no longer a viable candidate.

I loved the film. Didn't start this review to say that. I just wanted to add some mortar to the "cracks" people have imagined in this move because they're too impatient to handle watching it.