By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Starring Olivia Holt, Froy Gutierrez and Corteon Moore
Written and directed by Adam MacDonald
Independent Film Company/Shudder
By now, there’s a whole generation of audiences who have never known a cinema scene without fast zombies, and whose frame of reference for screen ghouls is THE WALKING DEAD rather than George A. Romero. This thought came to mind during the opening moments of THIS IS NOT A TEST and recurred throughout the film, which contains many of the standard 21st-century beats of its genre. Perhaps that’s why it’s set in 1998, which means its teenage protagonists can be forgiven for not initially recognizing the signs of a modern ZA.
These early scenes are especially reminiscent of the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, as young heroine Sloane Price (Olivia Holt) runs desperately through suburban streets while the neighborhood goes to hell around her. She winds up taking refuge, along with several other teenagers, in her local high school, which gives the title THIS IS NOT A TEST its double meaning. It could be seen as a response to Bender’s famous question “Is this a test?” in THE BREAKFAST CLUB, which is just as much a predecessor to this movie, and the popular Courtney Summers YA novel it’s based on, as past horror flicks. These kids may spend more time soul-searching than they do zombie-fighting.
Writer/director Adam MacDonald sets a somber tone even before the ravenous dead take over the streets. Sloane is first met as she’s contemplating suicide, and the movie quickly establishes her badly broken family: abusive father, absent mother and a sister, Lilly (Joelle Farrow), compelled to bolt. Holt, from HEART EYES and TOTALLY KILLER, is an immediately sympathetic presence, and MacDonald packs her flight to the school with frenetic if familiar energy, with lots of shaky and jittery camerawork. He doesn’t shy away from the gore, a mix of prosthetics designed by the busy Steve Newburn (WHISTLE, FRANKENSTEIN, FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN) and variable digital work, though here again, there’s a sense of seen-it-before to the mayhem.
The subsequent de-emphasis on undead attacks in favor of survivor interaction, once to story settles into the high-school setting, might also give some viewers a sense of déjà vu, and that’s just an accident of release scheduling. THIS IS NOT A TEST has the unfortunate timing to come out in the immediate wake of WE BURY THE DEAD and especially 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE, both of which wreaked wrenching drama from its people dealing with worlds in which humanity seems endangered even among the living. Taken on its own terms, the teen angst in THIS IS NOT A TEST is played with appropriate heart and sensitivity by its young cast, including Corteon Moore as Cary, who quickly and aggressively establishes himself as the leader; Froy Gutierrez (THE STRANGERS—CHAPTER 1) as Rhys, a nicer guy with whom the troubled Sloane tentatively bonds; and Carson MacCormac and Chloe Avakian as twins Trace and Grace, who have an immediate reason not to trust Cary.
Tensions arise early and often among the imperiled youths, stranded on their own with no adults to help them out; the appearance at one point of Mr. Baxter (Luke Macfarlane), a teacher who has an unhealthy preoccupation with Sloane, doesn’t help. There’s also time made for quieter moments of introspection and connection among the teens, as well as some who’s-been-bitten? tension. (The rules of zombie/infected transmission, behavior and destruction are pretty much standard, though there’s one neat twist toward the movie’s end.) Through it all, Sloane’s struggle to find a reason to keep surviving registers the strongest emotionally, as the rest doesn’t take the characters into any particularly surprising or revelatory directions.
It’s clear that all involved with THIS IS NOT A TEST approached it earnestly, with a clear commitment to the project. What it needed, at this point in its particular genre, was either a more adventurous approach to the material or a deeper, fresher dig into the psyches of its young people forced to grow up fast.
