Powerful

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The movie is your standard "outbreak" film: zombie, virus, alien, etc. People get taken over by a worm parasite on the other side of the world until it suddenly is hitting very close to home. NOTE: This movie is NOT about a virus, its about a parasite that takes over the host. Why they called it Viral, I'm not quite sure. There honestly isnt anything you havent seen before if you've watched any of these types of films before, only its been done better somewhere else. The two sisters come across as actual sisters and their acting is passable to decent. The love interest honestly felt out of place and wasted. I had hoped that with a wound he has from very early we would get some kind of nice "twist" but no, hes really there for no reason other than to prompt our main character to stop gawking and run away. Another wasted character is the father, who if you've seen him in other media you are probably expecting a good performance, but dont, as he's barely in the film. We have a very personal view of two sisters existing during this outbreak, one of which is probably one of the dumbest characters you'll see. FYI: if you get blood in any opening in your body, get checked out IMMEDIATELY.If you want a dumb popcorn flick where you can turn off your brain that has a touch of horror this might scratch that itch. However, if you're the type who cant turn off their brain and sees logical inconsistencies this movie will make your eyes roll out of the back of your head. There are just SO many things that are the epitome of stupid, done by our characters, by the script, by the government in the film, by other people in the film, its just so bad.IF you scare easily but get scared by horror movies but still like them, this might do it for you as there is actually little "horror". Theres a little body-horror and fake-jumpscares GALORE, and some VERY BAD CGI blood. There is a little bit of gross-out scenes of things like botfly removal or the effects of other parasites. I would pass on this one, its honestly not worth the time or effort unless you want to watch a brain-dead flick.

I quite enjoyed this film, I felt if I'd watched it at the age of sixteen I'd have loved it. As a story it's of course been done to death, but the delivery was pretty good, some nice rounded characters, with some great interplay, particularly between Emma and Stacey. The makers obviously felt no need for endless gore and violence, more subtly then terror. Trouble is we've all gotten used to hard hitting, no holds barred zombie films and serials, this would be a tad slow for many. It was watchable. 6/10

It seems to be that Viral brings very different opinions on IMDb. From reviewers that hated it to people that did like it. You can count me in the positive reviewers. It wasn't bad at all. Yes it is yet another pandemic movie about a virus in a form of a strange black worm that hosts your body. Those kind of movies have been done before but still it's enjoyable to watch. I would just added a bit more action to it to make it better. The acting wasn't bad considering there are a lot of teenagers in it, and that's rarely the occasion when it's this way. Okay they have a stupid behavior but that's like in real life, to me almost all adolescents act stupid and immature. So in conclusion I would say the story wasn't bad, the special effects were minor but okay, and the acting was certainly not terrible. Maybe not the best viral disease outbreak movie that has been done but still worth a watch.

It baffles me how nowadays you can just pick 3 or 4 old movies, mush them together and make a new one... I won't say Viral is necessarily a bad movie, what I can say is that it horribly lacks originality, it is very predictable and brings utterly nothing new to the table. Watching the same regurgitated story over and over is really getting tiring... The movie lazily rips off elements from other movies as they are without even bothering to switch things up. It's basically the combination of Carriers (2009), The Crazies (2010), Maggie (2015), and The Hive(2015).