Island Escape

I love this cast, so even though the story line was kinda confusing, it was good. It's basically the same cast that I've seen in a couple other movies from this same guy. It's supposed to be just a fun movie that you're not supposed to think too much into. I like that this guy makes monster movies, I wish he'd do something with dogman next time. That's one that no one really has touched on yet, dogman are different from werewolves. Anyway I'm getting off track. This was fun to watch, if you are a monster movie fan. Def could've been way better with a few tweaks, it's frustrating when movies that start off good and then the story line just... kinda goes off the rails.

Experiments, testing, cloning, and studies into things man was not meant to understand or change are always headquartered on little, out-of-the-way islands, then, someone has to go there, usually after something horrific has happened, to try and fix or retrieve things. That's what happens here as well, except that our heroes are mercenaries, hired to find the daughter of the man who hired them.

On this island, though, well, there are some things going on that they aren't told about at all, and, unfortunately, it's not going to go well for them when they do. Things in the woods are stalking them, there are strange discoveries in the woods of duplicate items the team members have on them already.

It plays a lot like a syfy channel/asylum lower-budget sci fi film, but is a lot bettter than it should be - certainly better than the "sharknado" films, in my opinion. Would recommend if you don't have too high expectations.

A 60 pound woman is hired to lead a team of five mercenaries with unknown skills to rescue the daughter of some dude. The team lands on the island by helicopter and proceeds to wander around, finding corpses on the way to the two tents that constitute the "DNA research lab" doing cutting edge science without the benefit of electricity or heat or protection from the elements.

It soon becomes clear the corpses are themselves, which is hinted at when they find duplicates of their own personal items on the bodies. Eventually the entire plot is read to us by an actor reading from a journal. So much for show not tell. The plot is a unique mixture of zombie and sci fi. It's a clever idea and in more competent hands could have formed the basis of a blockbuster movie.

This isn't a blockbuster.

There is no one who is relatable as character or actor. This is partially because of the low standard of the acting, but most of the blame goes to the writer. The actors simply aren't given anything meaningful to say or do. Backstory and interesting questions are shut down by someone saying, in essence, "the writer can't think of an answer so shut up". The camera work does the lack of emoting by the actors no favors by being up close all the time. The background music constantly implies something important is happening when nothing could be further from the truth.

Five stars for the interesting plot.

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.

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).