Unhuman Review

Unhuman review.

Unhuman is what we call an interesting mess. Too many missteps keep it from reaching and maintaining the highs it should have. A decent concept (that pays off in an unexpected way) and a fine lead performance help Unhuman overcome just enough to deliver a watchable escape. Barely.

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Unhuman

Directed by Marcus Dunstan

Written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan

Starring Brianne Tju, Benjamin Wadsworth, Uriah Shelton, Alo Gallo and Peter Giles

Unhuman Review

Unhuman is an odd duck. It seems to have fully accomplished what it sets out to do. That’s always a good thing. It allows you to appreciate that you got to experience someone’s vision put on film. Horror is the best genre for this. Most horror is done outside of the studio system that there simply aren’t as many notes to get in the way. Unhuman’s problem is that its vision is blurry.

A high school field trip runs into a zombie problem. Seven students must put aside their differences and work together to survive. Along the way they discover that the outbreak might have been done by design. A design specifically for them.

Unhuman is an easy watch. It’s fast paced and occasionally funny. The lead character is likable and has a strong story arc. Brianne Tju is terrific in the part. There’s a third act turn that is well earned and makes sense. There are enough positives to carry the movie to a certain level. So why is Unhuman kind of a mess?

The biggest mistake Unhuman makes is a style choice. It thinks it has a stylish look of camera tricks and a vibrant color palette. What it has is a big bowl of distractions. It’s difficult to become absorbed in a movie that also wants to give you a headache. There are many ways to show chaos on film…Unhuman makes a lot of wrong ones.

The settings in the movie aren’t interesting which makes dressing them up like we’re watching a rave at least make some sense artistically. There must be a happy medium between empty walls and painting everything like a child’s art project.

The third act turn is a welcome change story wise at that point in Unhuman. It’s an earned story twist that makes complete sense in retrospect. It also provides easily the best scene in the movie. By the time the credits roll, however, the movie has taken it off the rails in a bad way. While the pacing is purposely choppy throughout the film, the final act is as sloppy as the paint on the walls.

Unhuman is, at least, a movie with something to say. It’s about being an outcast more than about a zombie attack. These aspects of the movie are strong. At least until the climax beats caring about most of the characters out of you.

The zombie makeup and gore effects are fine here. They’re used sparingly…but sparingly with a purpose. These are the feral running type of zombies if you prefer that to the Romero shambling variety. Unfortunately, there’s nothing remotely scary going on with these zombies.

Anything good we get out of Unhuman comes from Tju’s performance and a script that seems better on the page than in action. It’s like they took a movie concept and made a 90-minute music video instead. The visuals do a disservice to any of the heart and thought the script originally had. There is a definite idea in Unhuman. A good idea even. It just handles it so haphazardly that it’s hard to care about it for more than a few scenes here and there.

Characters make stupid decisions, of course, but Unhuman eventually provides a reason for most of them. That was a nice touch. Tju’s character recognizes that many choices have been dumb and steps up to forge her own path through the zombie problem. Her character is the true saving grace of Unhuman. Without her performance and ability to capture more of what was on the page than the director could…we’d have nothing. It’s the one good thing that filmmaking decisions couldn’t beat out of the movie.

Scare Value

The good news is that Unhuman feels like a full realization of what it wants to be. The bad news is that it doesn’t add up to much. Brianne Tju turns in a great lead performance and there is an interesting, and earned, twist before the climax. Too many bad choices around those things limit Unhuman‘s ability to find a proper pace and deliver the goods.

2/5