The Killing Strain

Another of the many lame zombie movies to come down the pike. I'll start this out by saying this; if you're even thinking of watching this trash, skip it and go watch The Girl With All The Gifts or Train to Busan. Those are worth your time. This is a cliché ridden, poorly acted, lame mostly rip off of Night of the Living dead. It starts with a flat tire. Guys wife goes to take pictures - she gets attacked, killed and turns. Guy runs off, finds the worst boarded up farm house in the universe, filled with all stereotype characters, one's a redneck, one's a granny, two are hot girls (one's the rednecks girlfriend) and the final guy may or may not be gay. They don't know it but... Just do yourself a huge favor. Skip this silliness. You'll be grateful.

The Killing Strain is your run of the mill low budget zombie/virus movie. In all honesty the movie was not bad, it just was not good. There was nothing extraordinary to separate it from movies such as anything from the Dead Series by George Romero or even the 28 Days Later. So as you can already see the bar is set high to begin with. Yes, this is a low budget reflection of great movies in this genus, however; budget restraints aside there still was nothing that popped out at you and immediately or grabbed your attention. No amazing scenes of violence or compassion. Nor was the sub-standard acting done well, it was hard to tell if the actors played there parts purposely over the top, or was the acting that God awful again, hard to say. The pace of the movie was enjoyable at least they were no long drawn out explanation of what lead to this disaster. I just wish the Directors and writers would have taken the time to put a plot together that would take hold of you, instead we are treated to an ordinary run of the mill zombie-ish movie that will not differentiate it's self from over a 100 other such titles.

I picked up "The Killing Strain" from Amazon because of one reason; it is a zombie movie. I am a sucker for zombies, and just have to watch all that I can. When I received the movie by mail, I put it in my 'to-watch-pile' because the DVD cover looked sort of discount-like. So nearly two months pass by before I sit down to watch it.

"The Killing Strain" really surprised me, because it was not the kind of cheesy, low-budget crap zombie movie that I expected it to be. There was actually good production to this movie and they had fairly good actors and actresses on the cast list.

The story in "The Killing Strain" is as you have seen in countless zombie movies prior to this one. A strange infection is rampart, turning people into mindless killing machines - zombies, if you will - and the protagonists find themselves in the middle of the chaos. Yeah, nothing new here. But still, the movie was executed in such a manner that it managed to keep me entertained and watching. Being trapped in a farmhouse, again very cliché, there is a group of people coming together for survival, and of course personalities and tempers clash as not everyone is on the same page. And sure, the characters were fairly generic and cliché, but still it worked out well enough.

There was one thing that I didn't really like in the movie, and that is the "28 Days Later"-style zombies that are fast, agile and running about. But hey that is all a matter of preference. And the movie was still great, despite the running zombies.

The effects were good as well, and the zombies had great make-up. Now, you didn't really get the tradition guts, gore and gorging on intestines that you usually get in Romero's movies and such. But the zombies still had a great touch of being dead to the make-up and effects.

I don't understand the low rating this movie have gotten, because I found it to be one of the better non-blockbuster-produced zombie movies I have seen in quite some time.

As for the ending of the movie, well, I will not spoil anything by revealing it here, but that ending was so obvious, it could be seen coming a mile away.

I love a good zombie film, great bit of escapism, most times it makes for good viewing, even the B grade variety are OK to watch for a laugh. But this horror of a film is as bad as a B grader will get! Where do they get these 2 bit actors from? no not the people that act the zombie roles. The blood and guts parts are OK, but that's where it stops, the acting is so poor it nearly turned me into a brain dead zombie! And damn that script is horrible, and yes the directing is not much chop either. Should you watch it? sure why not, but be warned it is crap, but it is a great film to remind you of better films from the past, or hopefully better one's to come.

A very solid 1 out of 10

You can tell right from the start that this is a low budget film, so if you're expecting top of the line acting, directing, and writing, then this just isn't for you. Remember Robert Rodriguez's low-budget flick El Mariachi? This movie's style reminded me of that one in many ways. This felt like a low budget attempt by passionate people doing the best they could with what they had and watching it from that perspective, I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would! In that vein, I think it has a lot in common with Romero's original Night of the Living Dead as well. Unfortunately, this felt a little like someone trying to remake it rather than do something original. If you love zombie movies like I do, then you probably won't see anything new, but I don't think you'll be disappointed, either.