RyanCallaway

The first minute tells you what you're in for to a large extent. It's imperfect, low budget, and not everything works (the same is true for but budget films though). But it's also quite visually impressive at points, artistic, thought-provoking, and it creeped me out a few times. The story and characters were strong and consistent, everything had a purpose. I also thought the lead actress and most of the others were believable. And I appreciated that the ending wasn't forced or unnecessarily grim.

I enjoyed it.

It's the story of a group of people lured out into the wilderness to compete in a fitness trial, only to then be hunted down by the landowner. I quite enjoyed this film. The main characters were all fairly interesting, and their deaths actually carried a surprising weight because of how brutal and realistic they were. Even a certain character whom I hated, I found myself rooting for. The acting was solid and authentic, it was well shot (lower budget but it all looked good), and the story pretty decent. Also kind of ironic the main character spent weeks getting into tip top shape only to have it all rendered ineffective by an injury early on. Anyway to each their own, lots of negative reviews but I really liked this film.

The only real downside to the movie is that the zombie action isn't very impressive, to put it mildly. There aren't many scenes that are really anything close to scary once the initial tension passes. The first 45 minutes or so are very suspenseful and seemed to be building to something very frightening. Instead it went another direction and although it was disappointing, it was well done. The characters were very well developed, the story and emotions were authentic and the main actors did a great job. What really set it apart for me though was the moody score. It's beautiful, depressing, haunting, and really elevated the film and keeps the quieter moments more engaging than they should've been. Also kudos to the writer for actually coming up with a good ending - something many movies struggle with these days.