Studio: Blumhouse/Epix
Director: Marcus Dunstan
Writer: Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan
Producer: Paige Pemberton, Paul B. Uddo
Stars: Brianne Tju, Benjamin Wadsworth, Uriah Shelton, Ali Gallo, Peter Giles, Drew Scheid, Josh Mikel, Lo Graham, CJ LeBlanc, Blake C. Burt
Review Score:
Summary:
After their bus crashes en route to a field trip, a group of high school students must fight for their lives against a mysterious horde of seemingly murderous zombies.
Review:
“Unhuman” leaves no stereotypical stone unturned in its deployment of teen tropes. Ever, an ordinary girl next door with self-esteem issues, serves as the baseline. Her flighty friend Tamra isn’t quite in the “cool kid” clique, yet she has enough awareness to be hip to trends that determine who’s hot and who’s not. Prissy blonde Jacey hangs on the arm of jerky jock Danny. Danny’s fellow bully Hunt does double duty as the lone Black character in the bunch. Ryan is the overweight outcast. Candice is the nerdy nobody. Then there are pitiable loners Randall and Steven, the former of whom is angry about being ignored by girls and beaten by boys, and the latter of whom is much mousier about it.
Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan’s script for the film, which Dunstan also directs, requires a heap of easily identifiable alter egos because its motivating message concerns how a high school food chain imprints awful psychological effects, and inspires savage revenge fantasies, on the “losers” at the bottom. But I kept expecting Melton and Dunstan, whose work within the “Saw” and “Feast” franchises has positioned them as a creative team who deals equally in self-aware cleverness and extremely wet carnage, to also do something novel with how these clichéd characterizations are portrayed. They don’t though. Although “Unhuman” has that underlying theme involving faction-based rivalries, each person really is only as thick as those few words that describe them.
“Unhuman” attempts to eke out a personality through quirky humor and quirkier editing. One of those works a bit better than the other, and it’s definitely not the humor.
Comedy is usually subjective, but “Unhuman’s” is objectively unfunny. Opening titles identify the production as “A Blumhouse Afterschool Special” (not bad) “presented by the Student Teacher Division (STD)” (very bad). STD, get it? [Insert eye roll emoji.] Yeah, that’s what we’re working with here.
The students in “Unhuman” are en route to a field trip when their bus window explodes with a burst of blood. The supervising teacher, who must be “edgy” because his phone case turns his Samsung into brass knuckles, then says of the person he presumes they hit, “Let’s just hope he was a racist, so we don’t have to feel bad.” When the kids later hide from a horde of zombies, they seek safety in a room where a blacklight reveals neon-painted walls and glow sticks on the ground. One of the bullies says, “This is some layaway rave sh*t.” O-kay. Those are technically jokes, I guess. But are they funny enough to earn laughs?
When a horror-comedy runs on the fuel of fast-paced quipping, no one should expect every zinger to be a gut-buster. Still, do we really need two separate setups where the jock and then the rich bitch worry about messing up expensive kicks in the midst of bloody murder? “Unhuman” also includes a running gag where interstitial text identifies one scene as being set “4 or 5 weeks earlier,” another at “4 or 5 hours later,” then finally one that’s “4 or 5 months later” after that. Like, what’s funny about onscreen narration being repeatedly unable to decide between two numbers? No really, what’s the joke?
Since dialogue tends to land in a lump, “Unhuman” siphons energy and style from whipping wipe transitions and a music score that alternates between buoyantly bouncy and thunderously percussive depending on whether the tone calls for quiet kookiness or frantic action. As an Epix original, “Unhuman” is another “special” delivery from Blumhouse’s TV arm. Being budgeted at that trimmed-back tier means a bare minimum amount of wide establishing shots or big scenes. Most of the movie stays confined to a bus, an abandoned building, and a small set of trees drenched in fog to hide equipment undoubtedly stashed just a few feet out of frame. The main bad guy menacing the stranded teens is literally just a burnout metalhead in a Halloween mask too, so for it’s first half, “Unhuman’s” meager meal doesn’t amount to much sustenance.
There is a twist, however, and it’s actually a fairly decent one. “Unhuman” practically morphs into a different movie, one that finally flows with entertaining interactions seasoned with several genuine surprises, when the second half flips its switch. The trouble with that though, is “Unhuman’s” previous portion wears out a great deal of goodwill by trying too hard to break out of its blandness. Even with a frenetic finale filled with some fun, the clock may have already expired on winning back bored viewers.
You might have a strong urge to turn off “Unhuman” early. I wouldn’t blame you, although I would recommend giving it a bit longer, at least up until the key reveal, to see if the twist reignites your interest. Maybe it’ll salvage the disappointment of having made a mediocre choice for an evening’s entertainment. Or it might merely make you wish that the flat first 55 minutes featured as much flair as the final 35.
NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene.
Review Score: 50
“Kraven the Hunter” might as well be renamed “Kraven the Explainer,” as it’s much more of an unnecessarily tedious origin story than an action-intensive adventure.