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Extinction - Movie Review

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4 stars

Extinction opens with a military escort shuttling three school buses of uninfected citizens down a long stretch of road but, miles from the safe zone, the escort unexpectedly stops. The camera stays inside one bus and the citizens’ concern is palpable. A baby cries.  We see our cast – Matthew Fox (Lost) and Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice) – and watch the military guards on the bus as they make their way forward and begin to radio for the lead bus. No answer. One at a time, the soldiers leave the bus descending into the darkness that swallows the night. Suddenly, the it begins. Weird human-like creatures attack the bus and all hell breaks open.

Opening with this 15-minute brutally shocking scene, Extinction joins a new wave of horror and science fiction films that, while low on their budgets, are high on the imagination and sheer respect of the craft. I have seen Extinction twice in the last week and I absolutely love it. Miguel Ángel Vivas (Kidnapped) has delivered a film that is as tense and as isolated as it is effective and frightening. To put it simply, Extinction is an inspired take on the whole zombie phenomenon that is refreshing, ghoulish, and downright unforgettable.

Co-written by Alberto Marini, the horror film traces the survival of Patrick (Fox) and Jack (Donovan) and a nine-year-old girl, Lu (Quinn McColgan). The two men, living right next door to each other, don’t exactly see eye-to-eye and for good reason. Remember the opening? Well, there on the bus is a woman with the two men holding a newborn baby. The newborn baby is Lu. The woman is also Patrick’s wife. And, yet, there is tension between the two; tension that involves the three adults. You probably already guessed it...but who exactly is Lu's father?

So, nine years after the opening  - after the world has turned for the worse, covered in snow and packed with ice - Patrick lives alone with a dog and snowmobiles into the nearest town, Harmony, hunts and scores as much booze as possible during the day and eats well, doesn’t shave, and tries to contact someone, anyone via radio.

Alternatively, Jack and Lu scrape by as best they can with cans of beans and rice and do homework and watch television recordings. Jack does his best to keep Lu engaged with her studies but, as he can’t keep her from being curious, she is often at the window staring out into the winter wilderness wondering about the man next door and if she will ever come in contact with another kid her age.

For all Patrick and Jack know, the rest of the world is dead and only a few of the white-skinned zombie devils remain. They couldn’t be more wrong.

Extinction is a tightly-wound thriller that never spoils with its surprises. It is isolated and, when it does break free from its homestead trappings, allows for the unexpected to come crawling out. It is a film that is as violent as it is heartbreaking and, as it is all too believable, quite often scary as hell. The ongoing animosity between the two men is recounted to audiences via flashbacks and, while we don’t get the entire story upfront, we get enough of it to draw our own conclusions about what did or didn’t happen between the two men, the woman, and why Jack feels it necessary to raise Lu without the help of Patrick. It also explains why the two men MUST live next to each other.

Violent and engaging, Extinction surprised me as I was honestly expecting something less than what was presented.  There are a wicked amount of smarts behind the scenes here.  The acting is legit and, since it is a low budget affair, the digital artifice of the CGI cold world around their homestead is also legitimate environment. While tonally a match for Snowpiercer and Under the Skin, Extinction does exactly what The Battery did for the whole zombie apocalypse and reimagines it as something with a bit more bite.

Lu’s world is so squared-in and protected that when one monster comes around the house foraging it is indeed shocking. We get so wrapped up in the drama between the two men and what is at stake and wanting to know who is right and wrong in their argument that we forget just how dangerous the cold world is around them. Jack swears that the monsters are all gone but Lu keeps seeing things in the darkness; bloodied white objects that shouldn’t be there casting shadows onto the snow.

With a sharp focus on the ordinary in this tale of survival, Extinction proves that monsters ARE real.

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Extinction - Movie Review

MPAA Rating: R for horror violence, terror and language.
Runtime:
110 mins
Director
: Miguel Ángel Vivas
Writer:
Alberto Marini
Cast:
Matthew Fox, Jeffrey Donovan, Quinn McColgan
Genre
: Sci-fi
Tagline:
They are the last.
Memorable Movie Quote: "The forecast for tonight is cold."
Distributor:
Vertical Entertainment
Official Site: http://www.vacafilms.com/en/welcome-to-harmony/
Release Date:
July 31, 2015
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
No detials available.
Synopsis: Nine years after an infection turns most of the humanity into rabid creatures, Patrick, Jack and Lu, a nine-year-old girl, survive in seeming peace and calm in the forgotten snow-covered town of Harmony. We nonetheless sense that something terrible happened between Patrick and Jack because a deep hate keeps them apart. When the infected appear again, Patrick and Jack will have to leave behind all rancor to protect the one being who means more ti them than anything else.

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[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]

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