After Effect

After Effect otherwise known as The Removed, otherwise known as Patient Z: The Infected is a bit of an under the radar horror film and I can more than slightly see why.

It tells the story of a bunch of students in need of cash who join one of those dodgy medical testing thingies. Needless to say things don't go well for them in this feature zombie movie.

Wait, zombie!? Yes that's what it's advertised as but is it? This is more a 28 Days Later (2002) affair, I say this because zombie have rules and some people are quite stringent on that (Me included).

Truth be told going in I expected worse, I expected a hyper low budget zombie affair but it simply isn't. The movie looks great, on par with plenty of fairly high budget undead themed films I've seen lately so it certainly has that on its side. Character development? Also one for the win column, good job on that front.

Flip-side time, it just fails to come together. It lacks new ideas, though the setting is great what happens within it is generic, cliched and just not all that good. It's not bad, it's just that if you're a fan of the sub-genre you'll be seven steps ahead of the film itself.

Then there is the obligatory Baldwin brother, on this occasion Daniel. Have you noticed how some older/veteran/lazy actors have been having parts in films but don't liaise with any of the other cast at all? As if they never came onto the set a single time and was filmed separately? I've seen it a lot lately and that is what you have here again so certainly don't watch this for the Baldwin as he's not a big part of this movie.

If you're a big zombie fan you might find enjoyment (If you don't care about the zombie rules) but you'll have seen it all before.

The Good:

Looks decent

Great character development

The Bad:

Some of the films logistics are beyond dumb

Not zombies

Weak finale

A group of students sign up to take part in a military research scheme, a test that sees each of them due to cash in $1000. Some of the subjects are novices, some are experienced, the trial isn't quite what they'd planned for.

You could be forgiven for thinking that this was a rubbish film, multiple negative comments and a very low score, however, for horror lovers like myself, there is definitely something here to enjoy.

The subjects are all assembled, in an almost Agatha Christie style, then one by one they suffer their fate.

It's not quite a zombie movie as such, but there are shades, the 'monsters' are just a little bit different somehow.

The aids remark I thought was a little tasteless.

It is definitely not Daniel Baldwin's finest hour, he's a little hammy to say the least, but otherwise the acting is decent enough.

One of the more effective 'students take part in a medical trial' type horrors.

6/10.

I was lured in by the promise stating "The Walking Dead meets 28 Days Later" on the cover of this movie. So yeah, I must admit that I had some expectations for this 2012 movie. Which, I oddly enough, hadn't heard of before stumbling upon it in 2019, and I am a huge zombie fan.

Nevertheless, I sat down to watch "After Effect", and when I saw that Daniel Baldwin was in it, I knew that the movie was not likely to live up to what was promised on the front cover. And right I was, because this was quite far from both "The Walking Dead" and "28 Days Later". This was something else alright.

The movie definitely had potential, I mean a group of people locked inside a testing facility to undergo some military experiment. But that is where it stopped, because the movie settled into stupidity and sluggish mediocrity pretty quickly. Director David McElroy didn't really come up with anything particularly great here.

For a zombie movie, "After Effect" was not delivering anything worthwhile, and it was hard to take most of the characters seriously. I mean, some of the things they did and said was just downright stupid. If you sign up for testing and getting paid, why would you turn all scared and start yelling and screaming when you are lead to a room and they close the door behind you.

"After Effect" was not a memorable movie, yet I managed to sit through the entirety of it, hoping that it would improve and turn out just semi-adequate. That just never happened.

My rating of "After Effect" is a mere three out of ten stars. The movie was sluggish, boring and just downright uneventful. It was crammed with pointless characters that you don't really care about, and writers David McElroy and Marc Menet just didn't make much of anything noteworthy here with this 2012 movie.

No spoilers: Three of these turd movies about the same crap came out the same year. The Facility, Blood Work and this. This was the worst of the three. I couldn't rate any of them over a 3. This one is the worst. If you make it pass the classroom scene you might make it to the end.

Good acting. Good story. Good amount of gore. One negative..the reason behind the study. Way over the top. Overly ambitious and unrealistic. Movies like this have been done before. They've been done much better. The Killing Room would be an example. I take (and rate/compare) this movie for what it is. Low budget horror with unknown actors (besides Baldwin) and a pretty cool script. The movie has some bumps. You will roll your eyes a couple times during the Baldwin scenes. Other than that, no real complaints. The ending was especially well done. It doesn't take the easy route like most. I find the low rating bizarre. All I watch are horror movies. I've seen it all. I've seen plenty that deserve a 3. This isn't one of them. 8/10 on a low budget horror scale 5.5/10 horror in general scale