MY CALL: This film heavily derivative, borrowing a lot from The Walking Dead (2010-2019), I Am Legend (2007) and The Descent (2005). But I don’t really care. This film makes a great effort, it’s a decent movie, and it has a lot of heart. Derivative, but determined. MORE MOVIES LIKE Extinction: For more engaging apocalyptic Sci-Horror, try I Am Legend (2007), The Colony (2013), World War Z (2013), The Day (2011), 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), The Mist (2007), A Quiet Place (2018), Bird Box (2018) and The Happening (2008).
The near future is bleak and filled with highly contagious sprinting raging ghouls with a propensity for flesh-tearing neck bites—as is so often the case, right? After nearly a decade of no outside human contact, Patrick (Matthew Fox; Lost, Bone Tomahawk), Jack (Jeffrey Donovan; Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2) and young daughter Lu (Quinn McColgan) confirm they’re not alone after a sighting of the zombie-vampire creature that ended the world they once knew.
Albino, blind, generally naked flesh eat-eaters, our monsters push the creatures from The Descent (2005) above ground into I Am Legend (2007) territory. The violent action, blood and gore, and monster make-up are all good. Nothing here is original, but it’s certainly well done.
Director Miguel Ángel Vivas (Inside, Kidnapped) has brought us his own take on the end of the world. And as we’ve seen in The Walking Dead (2010-2019), I Am Legend (2007) and many others of the motif, going unnoticed to the non-human threat, seeking survivors across radio waves, and foraging for food become the main themes. The best filmmaking decision (for me) was the Winter setting, which added a crisply barren palate and a great deal of flavor to Fox and Donovan’s solid performances.
But what’s with these blind predators? Pitch Black (2000), A Quiet Place (2018), The Silence (2019), The Descent (2005), Tremors (1990)… sometimes subterranean evolution is a good reason, but that doesn’t at all apply in the present film. I’m guessing Miguel Ángel Vivas just loved The Descent (2005), as the present ghouls feel strikingly similar to them.
You know what? This film heavily derivative, borrowing a lot from many well-known sources (especially TWD season 3 in one particular scene). But I don’t really care. This film still makes a significant and appreciable effort, it’s a decent movie, and it has a lot of heart. Derivative, but determined.
