You know when you get that odd feeling of Deja-vu, that you've seen this before, but something is just not quite right about it? Well, let me direct you to Korean escape horror, Alive, which shares writing credits with this. Alive was a passable horror about a pandemic (okay okay, zombie apocalypse) that featured one unfortunate soul trapped in his apartment when the shit hits the fan. He's got enough food and water to last awhile. But not forever.
So this is where familiarity breeds. Not as good as the Korean version (I don't know which one came first, so I am reluctant to call 'Alive' the original) because Korean cinema is just balls-out crazy to begin with, let alone throwing zombies in for good measure.
And as if proof was required that we are really not prepared for a pandemic of this type, you only have to look at our most recent visit to lockdown in recent years. Not to belittle COVID, but we didn't fare well. Imagine if mother nature got really pissed and threw this at us instead.
Alone has more heart, it would seem, than its counterpart, but we could argue that the soul is lost in translation, perhaps, but here there are genuine moments of warmth in an otherwise cold, unfeeling situation. To be specific may ruin the plot, so I'll keep lips locked. Suffice to say that our lead Aidan (Tyler Posey) seems like a good soul that really likes company, to the point that he'd rather die without it.
Lucky then that he comes across another person in the same boat in the apartment opposite, and later on, another just next door in the form of the great Donald Sutherland, who you might rightly ask why he is here in the first place. His appearance whilst not quite a cameo, is no more relevant that the name that comes with it. Blink and you'll miss him, though he's great when he's present.
The performances from those that still have the capacity to string a sentence together are all average or above, but the grunting, slavering masses are less impressive on the whole and the frights, such as they are, are gleaned from what might happen rather than what actually does.
In all, better than I was expecting, but my expectations weren't exactly high to start with. It entertained throughout though immersed only intermittently. Even at the ninety minute runtime, it seemed a fraction laboured, but still this could have much, much worse.