Mark wakes up in his council apartment after what looks like one hell of a bender, and discovers he doesn’t have electricity or water. Guess the council are cutting back on costs, or Mark hasn’t been paying his utilities bill. He gets a phone call; oops he’s running late for his estranged son’s birthday. Luckily he can’t get out of his apartment, as its glued and locked shut, which gives Mark an instant excuse for his tardiness. And even more complications occur during his morning when a head case smashes his way through Mark’s lounge wall and enters the apartment along with a nurse, some soy boy, and a young kid who can’t talk. Naturally Mark is all British about this, but takes the opportunity to break through into his elderly next door neighbour’s apartment to see if Enid is right. Having made the required introductions Mark discovers the whole apartment block, and complex are in lockdown due to a deadly virus going down. It’s Mark and his crew versus locals and hazmat suited military, guess he is really going to be late for his kid’s birthday party.

Guess we should talk the focus of this low budget movie. Rather than fully explaining the virus that has led to the actual containment, where it came from etc., the movie focuses on individuals versus the largely unknown Government. There’s a reason just about everyone arriving at the containment area is wearing hazmat suits, it makes the individuals indistinguishable from each other, they become a humongous whole. Even worse there doesn’t appear to be any command structure, no one who can speak directly to those within the containment area. Director Neil Mcenery-West pretty much points out an uncaring establishment and the people impacted by that establishment as being disposable. Something that needs to be control, rather than individuals who should be treated with something like dignity.

In comparison our leads are a group of diverse people, who would not normally be in the same vicinity, let alone cooperating for anything. We have the everyman, who has to understand the situation and tries to work out some logic t what is happening. He needs explanations, is not going to get them, and simply can’t understand the situation in any civilised fashion. There’s a skinhead boy, who’s resolution to any situation is testosterone induced confrontation if not actual violence. A nurse who works to keep everyone hail and healthy. A soy boy who is at best useless in the circumstance. A young boy, who never speaks, and finally an older lady who represents the quiet racism bubbling under the surface of modern day England. Surprisingly the group does work, until external pressures lead to the obvious fractures being ripped apart. While director Neil Mcenery-West might be pointing out the Government, via their military involvement, is unknown for the most part the victims of the containment are not exactly covering themselves in glory. Our group capture one of the Government agents, more oh her later, and naturally the skinhead in the group has to let everyone know what they have achieved. Clearly he doesn’t think beyond the immediate self-satisfaction motif, which is a good place to point out Mcenery-West does well in developing his characters. Anyways we learn there is an antidote to the contagion, which has been issued to the Government workers, and suddenly the name of the game is to get the antidote, regardless of cost. There’s one of the most disturbing and ironic aspects to the movie with this. Naturally the inhabitants of the housing complex turn on themselves like rabid dogs. While our group are distracted by an attack by other denizens of their apartment block, Soy Boy steals the discarded hazmat suit, takes the antidote, and does a runner. Does he succeed, hell no, a sniper notices the hazmat suit is compromised and takes out Soy Boy. The irony is later the apartment building rioters capture the Government worker, who is sans antidote, and then naturally kill her – off screen and surprisingly this is even more impactful. They do manage to take out the skinhead as well, so I guess that’s some balancing or something. Director Mcenery-West is pulling one of the cards from the zombie tarot pack, the Government forces as the zombies, with our central characters having more to worry about from their fellow apartment dwellers – the other human survivors. 

So we get the movie moving from an outbreak story, through an infected movie – very much like the original The Crazies, to by the final act being a survival horror outing. And if I had to be completely honest we go from survival to nihilistic in pretty quick fashion. Our focal group are cut down one by one, due to various dangers, with the only survivor not being who we think it will be. Right at the end of the movie we get a look at the broader impact of the virus, and learn there is a common element to the survivors the Government picks up. Not saying that the movie makers are making any sort of comment on the human condition or what the contagion might be and who might have released the contagion, but you can read in what you want.

The movie is apparently shoot in colour, I say apparently because it could pretty much have been in black and white and no one would have really noticed. The atmosphere is bleak, which I guess sums up what I have seen of British tower blocks in various genres, and there really isn’t much breaking up the bleakness. We get the feeling our central characters are just surviving, and end of day having to fight for survival isn’t adding much different to their normal existence. See what I mean by nihilistic, there is no light at the end of the tunnel here.

I was surprised by how good this clearly low budget movie was. There’s themes bubbling away below the surface, that you can either dial into or not, it’s not going to impact your enjoyment of the movie. The acting is excellent, though to be slightly brutal slightly leaning to cardboard cut-outs, would love to know what the Director was working toward there, for example the skinhead shows no character development while the racist grandmother does show character development. And the plot and pacing keeps the viewer involved. I’m giving this movie a full recommendation, an excellent example of a movie being made that respects its audience. I was really glad I fell across this movie, it was actually hard to find, but well worth the effort.