Too much of everything

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Another of the many lame zombie movies to come down the pike. I'll start this out by saying this; if you're even thinking of watching this trash, skip it and go watch The Girl With All The Gifts or Train to Busan. Those are worth your time. This is a cliché ridden, poorly acted, lame mostly rip off of Night of the Living dead. It starts with a flat tire. Guys wife goes to take pictures - she gets attacked, killed and turns. Guy runs off, finds the worst boarded up farm house in the universe, filled with all stereotype characters, one's a redneck, one's a granny, two are hot girls (one's the rednecks girlfriend) and the final guy may or may not be gay. They don't know it but... Just do yourself a huge favor. Skip this silliness. You'll be grateful.

THE KILLING STRAIN is another garden-variety zombie movie, made at an independent level (and on the cheap) and shot out in the wilds of Texas. It's a pretty unconvincing and uninteresting little movie, content to plough well-furrowed fields instead of chronicling anything new, and is let down as a whole by the usual constraints of indie film-making.The main problem the film has is the derivative script which fails to give the viewer either an interesting storyline or likable characters. The amateur cast do their best but their roles are very ordinary with nobody standing out from the crowd. The special effects are limited and the zombies in the film are just your bog standard looking types with little to distinguish them from another hundred movies.In essence the film is a version of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, with various survivors holing up together in remote buildings to survive an onslaught of the living dead. If no other zombie movies existed then this one would feel quite exciting, but it's that over-familiarity that ruins it for me; to make a mark these days, a zombie film has to do something really special, instead of being merely ordinary.

I don't know what version of the movie you guys watched, this was the broadcast premier on the Chiller channel by the same name.The acting really wasn't that bad. The FX weren't really that bad either. It wasn't really exceptional, just what you'd come to expect from a mid/low level budget made for cable movie.You can't expect the quality of a polished production from some major studio, but this was much better than a lot of garbage that's been produced and then, somehow, actually gets aired.Yeah, there are a few of the maddeningly stupid plot devices to build suspense - let's go down into the dark cellar all alone, and if you hear a strange noise don't bother to tell anyone or call for help.There's the loudmouth bully, and the nerdy guy, and the chick who lost her family, and the sensible guy everyone wants to listen to. Nothing too revealing, but well played non-the-less.And you do notice one or two scenes that never seemed to be followed up on even though you knew something was supposed to happen with them. But nothing was so glaringly terrible that it would ruin the entire movie.Solid B grade movie with decent acting and storyline.

Wow! I went to see the midnight premiere of this film in San Antonio, TX since a large portion of the film was shot on some land owned by my family, and several of my relatives played zombies. I am sorry to say that this film did not turn out into anything remotely resembling a polished, well-made film. Where to start? The acting was cheesy, non-fluid and everything about the film just felt forced. There was horrible timing issues (delayed reactions) probably due to poor editing in the cutting room. The acting was so bad, it borderlines on being funny, but there was such an obvious intent to be serious that it turns out to be just painful.The plot itself is pretty standard of zombie films, (of which I am normally a fan) beginning with an experiment going horribly wrong and the entire region (South Texas in this case) becoming infected. Eventually the entire crew gets stranded in a house, and just seem to stay there for the entire movie. It was quite boring, with the only interruptions being the anticipated attack on the house by zombies, and the standard searching for supplies to escape routine which you would expect. This isn't necessarily a bad thing if it is done right, like in Night of the Living Dead which kept a certain amount of excitement (albeit cheesy and over-the-top) throughout the whole feature. Instead, the whole thing felt more like a high school kid with an expensive camera,some friends and some money to blow to create a film, as opposed to a professional director and group of actors.Finally, the errors in this film were just too much to handle. The CG effects were laughable at best and entailed a still-framed picture with some fire and/or smoke added in for effect. In several of the scenes, you could actually see a loading symbol in the bottom right from the computer editing program which was never removed. But the worst part were the inexplicable UFO's which were shown on the horizon in a scene near the end of the movie. It looked like the whole thing was stolen from another film and then destroyed cars, fire and obviously fake mannequins with blood were just superimposed over the image. Add in a few plot holes (I don't hold it against them too much, it IS a zombie movie after all) and COUNTLESS continuity errors (such was firearms mysteriously appearing and reappearing with different people in different parts of the film) and you have a film which looked and felt like the group was making last-minute edits to the film up through the car ride over to the theater. Avoid at all costs!!!