A strangely light piece of work from Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, certainly in comparison to the movies that made their name, Unhuman also shows why they should maybe stick to the nastier and more intense horror movies that they seem to enjoy. Because this isn't good. And it isn't good in a way that becomes more and more infuriating as you think on it more.
The plot is fairly simple. A typical assortment of teens are on a school trip when something goes wrong. The bus they are on is attacked, leaving them in a state of panic as they all try to avoid becoming a snack for some things that definitely walk and act like flesh-eating zombies. They're unable to stay fully focused on the main problem, however, as typical cliques and resentments continue to affect the group dynamic.
I'm not sure where to begin with this one. Maybe you should all check out the trailer and see if you think you might enjoy it. Be warned though, the trailer does what trailers are supposed to do. It sells you on something that isn't really there. All I wanted was a simple tale of ill-prepared teens fighting against zombies while being unable to stop fighting one another, and what I got was much worse. There's something else going on here, you see, something that might have been a bit more thought out and planned than most of the teenagers realise.
The cast generally do okay. Brianne Tju is Ever, a decent female lead, and her onscreen BFF is played by Ali Gallo, who has a nice presence. Drew Scheid, Benjamin Wadsworth, Uriah Shelton, and C. J. LeBlanc play the male characters who make the strongest impressions, and they do just fine in their roles, but they feel like they are playing archetypes. That's not necessarily the case, not entirely anyway, but characters aren't really fleshed out to any satisfying degree. I will say the same for the likes of Lo Graham, Blake Burt,Tyler Galpin, other teens filling out the cast who don't get much to do. At least Peter Giles does his bit to help entertain, playing a teacher who seems amusingly carefree about his role.
What this film needed to do, funnily enough, was dive right into the main influences it wanted to play around with. Dunstan and Melton only really make things clear, and forehead-smackingly obvious, in the final scenes, which may make many groan, as I did, rather than appreciate the attempted reworking of familiar ingredients. Because the central idea is all this has going for it. The comedy doesn't work, there's a lack of decent gore, and nobody even has the balls to settle for a selection of needle drop soundtrack moments and some affectionate overuse of montage (which would have absolutely worked, considering the movies being referenced).
Unhuman? More like unamusing, unentertaining, and unworthy of your time.
3/10
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