Island Escape

For those that enjoy low budget flicks this isn't the worst one. The story is decent, it's a sci fi horror action movie.

The movie goes along at a decent pace which is the only thing working for it, the budget went to the makeup department which is done quite good for the "monsters" and the rest probably for the main actors gym and protein powder as we do get a shirtless scene.

I'm giving it 5 stars because the camera work is okay and it's all well shot with good lighting which is something so many low budget movies fail at. Along with solid story elements and the fact it kept my attention enough for me to finish it.

The intro paying homage to Predator was fine, I suppose. That's likely to be my main takeaway from this. The characters are portrayed reasonably well despite most of them being predictable tropes. Their tactical choices as elite mercenaries were dubious at best, which made it hard to root for them. That's not on those actors it's on whoever set up the progression of the scenes. I'm not some military armchair commander and nor do I care to be. All I know is I remember being more coordinated with my friends playing capture the flag as kids in the woods.

VFX didn't have too much to do here. As for effectiveness, it was almost there. The VFX on the adversaries was a bucket of fake blood poured over them with their eyes whited out. Then shot in the shadows to conceal it. Plus whatever digital modification was done, if any. It didn't really land for me. The aggro zombie growling into the camera came across as comical to me, and it was done far too often. Overall it was not frightening. It seems like something that could work on paper but in the moment it didn't get me.

While the monsters weren't truly pulling me out of the moment, the music absolutely was. The sfx and music were at odds with each other rather than complimentary. There would be several scenes with captions such as "bushes rustling" or some variation, but the music was so overpowering that I heard nothing else.

In the beginning the music was OK for the 'lets get the gang together' scenes. After that it didn't fit. During the stalking scenes a drone sound was typically used. Which usually progressed into stock action movie ambience. It was mixed poorly and often sounded like all my mids and highs turned off and then my lows cranked to 10. It didn't make me feel spooked. It had me wondering if I should pause the film to check my EQ.

Ultimately I don't feel like watching it was bothersome, but it did come close. I wouldn't watch this again, but once was fine. It vibes like a tv movie on the sci-fi channel in the 90s that you'd stop on mostly to cease channel flipping.

The storyline in this time warp story is so convoluted that it doubles and triples back on itself leading to an ending that is completely nonsense!

The characters are pretty good and flushed out to a good degree, so that you get comfortable with them and by mid movies your are sympathizing with their plight and rooting for them, but even the relationships get so intertwined with the storyline that a good deal of even that aspect becomes fuzzy.

The subplot of the romantic aspect of the story is really bad and since the female lead bears a striking resemblance to "Mr. Bean" the few romantic scenes are hilarious. The female lead is a disaster - too scrawny to be the rough and ready mercenary type and too boyish and homely to add to a romantic subplot!

The ending makes you scratch your head and say "what the hell" to yourself as the credits roll!!!

When the daughter of an ultra-rich CEO is taken hostage at an experimental research facility, on a remote island.

A ragtag team of blue collar mercenaries are compiled to get her back.

However...little do they suspect what they'll be up against...

...Zombies. It's zombies.

The whole thing is a low budget action-horror-sci-fi film, featuring some middle brow acting, decent practical effects, and- what seems like- a pretty straight forward storyline (at least at first).

However, it's mostly just a group of people running around the woods with guns.

With an incredibly bizarre sci-fi angle spun in.

Where "the island resets itself every 3 days".

Which apparently means that new versions of themselves will come to the island every three days...while everyone left on the island past the three day point will turn into zombies.

Meaning that they are effectively caught in a neverending timeloop, fighting against zombified versions of themselves.

So...they must escape the island within that three day window...or accept their zombie fate.

That is, if they aren't killed by the island's "self destruction sequence", which the company behind the research facility claims they have initiated.

It's all kind of weird.

And hard to follow.

As it doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense.

Especially when the bit about traveling back through time- and going through wormholes- comes into play.

It's hard not to get lost in the foray.

So all you can do is try to roll with it.

Even if you don't understand exactly what is going on.

Perhaps it's all just over my head.

But I don't think so.

The complexity of it all is certainly intriguing.

But, in reality, it's just a poorly thought out, and forcibly constructed, storyline.

Turning what seemed like a straight forward zombie island escape, into a confounding sci-fi conundrum.

3 out of 10 (for trying).

First the good part.

Bruce Wemple have written a really good story for a movie, with some dialogues and twists that show a promising future for him as a script writer.

Now the bad part.

Acting, clothes and equipment for a supposed elite special ops team - instead they looks rather as the weekend bbq buddies with a grill, some beer and 20 pounds of pork.

Top secret highly advanced research laboratory on an remote island, that dabble in DNA and similar things to make humanity resistant to viruses, in two small tents ???

You got to be kidding me !

Something must have gone wrong there. They must have a tight schedule filming and suddenly the building they wanted to film in suddenly said no for some reason, or something.

With a big budget and better actors, this could been a really good film - so i give it an extra star rating for that.