Infección

Was OK, nice zombie make up, good idea of rabids plus drug

I found this movie predictable, uneven, rushed and premature. You have seen it all before, but so much better. At least some settings looked really bleak and abandoned and the camera work was good. But the plot was a shame. Absolutely nothing new, except it's in spanish (mostly)!

Well, taking into consideration that this is a Venezuelan movie, then things weren't actually all that bad. And truth be told, the movie was definitely watchable for a zombie movie.

However, if you compare it to some of the Western or Asian zombie movies, then "Infección" sort of pales in comparison and stands out as being a mere mediocre foray into the zombie genre. When in fact the movie does offer nothing new to the zombie genre.

It was the fact that this was a non-American zombie movie that sort of made the movie interesting for me. Story-wise and contents-wise, then "Infección" wasn't overly impressive. Entertaining enough for sure, but not impressive or outstanding.

The zombie make-up was okay. Again, not outstanding. And for a life-long zombie fan like myself, I found that the movie was grossly lacking in the gore and mayhem department. I enjoy watching decaying and slow shambling zombies, not fast-running agile zombies that are little more than people in tattered garments with a few splatters of blood here and there.

If you are new to the zombie genre, then "Infección" is perhaps a good movie, but for those in the audience that have sat through an abundance of zombie movies already, it doesn't bring much of anything new to the table.

I am rating "Infección" a mediocre five out of ten stars. While it was watchable and a zombie movie - which in itself counts for something with me - it just wasn't an outstanding movie in the zombie genre. It did, however, put Venezuela on the zombie world map, so thumbs up for that.

The ending felt rushed and ambiguos. The post credit scene is the best part of the whole movie, juxtaposing the infection with the plight of Venezuelan migrants.

This is not another zombie movie. Yes, it does relies heavily on classic zombie cliches, but it's much more than that. Zombies are a metaphor for "Chavistas", those who blindly supported, and still support, the so-called Bolivarian revolution, the great political swindle that broke a country and its people. The infection itself is a metaphor for the distorted form of socialism imposed by Hugo Chavez (a great manipulator and a vulgar thug) and continued -even more distorted- by Nicolas Maduro. With that in mind, you have to watch the film as what it is: a reflection of what happens every day within the frontiers of this once great country. The "infection" has spread to all areas of life, and the zombies are those who succumb to it instead of fighting it. The parallelism between both horrors is appalling, and it is well achieved. Images of thousands fleeing the country due to the humanitarian crisis, have been used to recreate a post-infection exodus, and although the resource could have been better developed, it shows the very dark side of this massive migration wave: the general rejection Venezuelan migrants have encountered throughout its neighboring nations...so much for solidarity and Latin American fraternity. There is some outstanding acting, and upon researching, I've discovered that some characters are played by well-respected actors of long trajectory and experience (Leonidas Urbina, Ananda Troconis, Rubén Guevara, Francis Rueda), and it shows in the energy and pace of the film. They make the film believable. Some settings were really interesting, as well. I mostly regret the ending, which was rushed, ambiguous, unresolved. You get the idea of what happens, but it could have been so much better developed, specially after the good dose of suspense and sheer horror that the film makes you feel at times. In all, a very decent movie, about a terrible desease that has brought what once was one of the most promising emerging countries to its knees, helped by the indifference and shameful silence of the world: the sick and distorted Bolivarian socialism - which has proved to be neither Bolivarian nor socialist-. I encourage you to watch it if you want to see more of just zombies and gore.