a big step backward for 2020s zombie horror

Over the course of the last seven months, audiences have gotten to see two zombie horror movies that are arguably among the best ever made. But even as 28 Years Later and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple are attempting to put some prestige on the subgenre, we’re already crashing back down to earth. This Is Not a Test, from writer-director Adam MacDonald, based on Courtney Summers’ young adult novel, didn’t get the memo.

The zombie subgenre is littered with bad movies, weak TV shows, and thousands of questionable costume choices. Then there’s the cultural juggernaut of The Walking Dead, the TV adaptation of Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore’s long-running comics series. The TV series ran for 11 seasons of varying quality and reintroduced zombies to mainstream pop culture, launching a new wave of zombie movies — including some based on novels that predate The Walking Dead‘s TV debut, like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Brad Pitt’s World War Z. The movies of that era — like Overlord, the bloody World War II zombie flick — were rarely great, but not always terrible, either. Zombie fans got a lot of gory filler content to keep them satiated between Walking Dead seasons.

The last decade also included a small crop of zombie films that felt far outside the norm, like international gems Train to Busan and One Cut of the Dead, the holiday musical Anna and the Apocalypse, and the Jim Jarmusch-directed absurdist comedy The Dead Don’t Die.

While The Walking Dead is still creeping along, thanks to two spin-offs — Dead City and Daryl Dixon — 28 Years Later and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple are more akin to the likes of Train to Busan and The Dead Don’t Die than the long-running AMC series. These recent movies almost had me fooled into thinking perhaps the zombie subgenre was in the midst of a radical revolution. I guess I don’t have to worry about that: This Is Not a Test reminded me that no matter how great a zombie movie might be, there’s always a mediocre-to-bad one right behind it to drag us back into the muck.

I wanted to love this movie. I certainly loved the trailer and its “Dawn of the Dead meets The Breakfast Club” twist on the genre, which finds a group of teens attempting to survive a zombie apocalypse while barricaded in their abandoned high school.

But the story is formulaic, and the script constantly telegraphs any upcoming twists, sucking the tension out of the action. The characters are thinly drawn. The movie looks like it was filmed through a glass of murky water. Every scene not only looks underlit, but also like the wrong type of lighting was being used. While the intention must have been a dark, spooky look, the results are just muddy.

Compare that to the stunning, epic-scale look of The Bone Temple or the brightness of Anna and the Apocalypse — another story about a bunch of high school classmates trying to survive together in spite of the adults around them — and it’s clear how lacking This Is Not a Test is visually.

Unfortunately, the cast doesn’t take up the slack. Between the generic story and shallow characters, there’s no real chance of that. Even Olivia Holt (Cruel Summer), who plays protagonist Sloane Price, has little to do but sit and brood throughout the movie. Viewers learn about her traumatic past over the course of the story, but all Holt brings to the table is a blank stare that she maintains for the majority of the film. When you can’t find it within yourself to root for the movie’s hero to survive the apocalypse, something is wrong. And it’s hard to fault the actress, based on the minimalist character she was given.

Image: IFC Films/Shudder

When the end of the world begins, Sloane is introduced lying in a bathtub, contemplating her suicide note and her own wrist veins. Her father is abusive, and her beloved older sister abruptly left home, leaving Sloane to absorb all his violence and cruelty. Tracking her evolution through the early stages of a zombie outbreak should make for a compelling story, as this woman who was ready to end her life is now fighting for survival.

But Sloane has no clear growth or story arc. Unlike the running zombies now inhabiting her town, she shambles through the movie without any sort of urgency or intensity. She gets no clear character growth. Nor does anyone else in the movie — her classmates are all generic types who barely stand out as individuals. And as much as I wish I could say the movie leans into incredible zombie action or effects instead, even those aspects of the movie are wholly underbaked.

Image: IFC Films/Shudder

If This Is Not a Test had been released in 2005, as a studio’s response to Zack Snyder’s 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake, I might be more lenient with it. That was a different time for zombie cinema. It was also 20 years ago. This particular horror subgenre has grown up and gone off to college. Meanwhile, movies like This Is Not a Test are still stuck in high school.

This Is Not a Test debuts in theaters on Feb. 20.