It’s just such a letdown when a movie’s second act starts with a time jump. Also, this movie is such pretentious melodrama. How did they even come up with this idea? A dysfunctional family where parents bring their past traumas into their daily lives and they have just the worst communication with each other are forced to make it work. How original… and why? Because there’s a fucking zombie apocalypse going on. Like huh?

They need so much therapy because they are so unbearable, specially the dude with his backhanded, pusillanimous, constant mistreatment of his wife and kids that he, or the movie, hides behind and justifies with his childhood traumas, as if they are magically arising while they’re in the house. It is so unbelievable and naive to expect us to agree that his behaviour is a surprise to their children. But hey, no therapy for him because there’s a zombie outbreak, which renders him virtually unredeemable and this is a conclusion that can be made before the film’s second half. And mind, it is a 145min film. IT’S LITERALLY THE SHINING BUT LESS SUBTLE.

It does pick up a little after a while and there are some interesting choices here and there, but there’s just so little restraint!! It’s infuriatingly unnecessarily slow, and does not know how to balance well its silliness and its reflective nature. Towards the third act the movie seems to decide it needs to have a hero and then the mom becomes it, and then it’s when I started to get a little more invested and I thought this film was actually good for a while, and that is sustained towards the very end, which is actually quite good. 

Overall, it’s a pretentious, derivative, uneven bore fest that miraculously picks up towards the end and manages to end in a rare high note, but I swear to god I was this close to pausing it and leaving it after the first hour, but because I just love zombie films so much I stuck with it and I gotta say I felt weirdly rewarded. So, I am leaving a like. How’s that for contradictions? Peace out ✌🏽