Infestation

Title: Infestation
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Horror, Comedy
Starring: Chris Marquette, Brooke Nevin, Ray Wise
Director: Kyle Rankin

Another one of those low-budget ‘SyFy’ flicks, the ones that get given a shoestring budget to play around with and usually fail in a horrendously amusing manner, this is one that stood out to me. Not only was it given a comparatively large budget ($5 million) to splash out on CGI that whilst felt dated, was no worse than a film released a few years back, but the cast also includes Ray Wise (the devil from ‘Reaper’ amongst others) meaning I can’t blame poor acting on the fact they cast nobodies for most of the roles. Everything looks like it could be shaping up for something – if perhaps not good then – at least entertaining. Except it really isn’t.

The lack of any explanation in particular grates on me; this is a film about an infestation of giant bugs that are a sort of combination of random pieces of existing insects - the legs and ability to form a web of a spider, the wings of a fly and the stinger of a wasp (and for some bizarre reason, the scream of an 'Alien') – and if this random mutation wasn’t bad enough, at no point is any explanation offered as to where it might have come from. In fact, nobody even asks the question, as if it was an expected occurrence. Even the relatively minor details such as the cliché “all the radio’s are inexplicably broken” and the shameless inclusion of zombies ‘because they can’ all build to create a joke of a film (but not a funny one).

I would continue with the plot but that constitutes most of it; an asshole slacker wakes up in a web cocoon, wakes some other people up and runs around in circles for a bit before deciding now that most of them have been mercilessly killed off, it might be a good idea to not die. Most of the characters are complete throwaways; the dumb blonde, the pathological liar love interest, asshole lead and a big black guy whose main distinguishing feature is the fact he can’t hear. With the exception of one, if you can remember so much as vague details about what they look like its probably only because they were whiny and annoying. That one exception of Ray Wise, emerging in the second half of the film and proving to be the films saving grace; the single character capable of eliciting a laugh thanks to his comic timing, and possibly the realisation that taking a overused cliché line and twisting it at the end is neither clever nor amusing.

But my biggest issue here – beyond the questionable acting, bad dialogue and throwaway characters – is hands down the film’s concept. I don’t even mean the lack of originality (this is a SyFy film after all) but the fact that it doesn’t know what it wants to do. It has a B-Movie premise that tries to be some better than it really is; a horror/comedy that tries to be amusing but in a serious manner and the inevitable result of trying to do everything is succeeding at doing nothing. It’s too flat for comedy, too generic and predictable to be serious and too serious to even elicit a few B-Movie chuckles. It picks up the pace a little in the second half but it all comes a little too late; acceptable CGI and a couple of chuckles is all you can really hope to get out of this. Unless you’ve never seen a monster film before, move along.

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