Release Date: August 2, 2016
Rating: R
Running Time: 85 minutes
Teenaged sisters Emma (Sofia Black-D’Elia) and Stacey (Analeigh Tipton) live a normal life, until their small suburban neighborhood is stricken with a mysterious parasitic virus. As the disease rapidly spreads throughout the town, the two band together to barricade themselves from infection. But it may already be too late – when the virus enters their home, the sisters are faced with an impossible choice: protect each other, or survive the virus.
I had no expectations for Viral and still, it was much better than I anticipated it would be. Especially coming from someone who is a punk when it comes to anything close to horror. Not only was this really engaging but it was something that I could actually handle. While this was an outbreak movie, there was a bigger element of horror than your average outbreak movie, given the people behind this film (The Purge, The Visit, Insidious), so I was on edge at first.
The thing is, this movie starts out like any other contemporary teen movie (minus the opening credits that includes your typical doomsday prologue to this type of story) and the impending doom factor doesn’t even feel present or like it was coming, which it wasn’t for quite some time. I really liked the pacing of the story and how it takes its time setting up, giving us time to get to know these sisters and their world. It’s refreshing and always so great when movies aren’t rushed.
As the story progresses though, I did have a problem with just how idiotic the girls were. And going into spoilers, I was really, really angered by one of the sisters not telling the other that she was infected. Though to be fair, both sisters were present when one of the infected went on a rampage at the party that they were at and infected her so they both should have known at that point (and if not at that point then when Marshall Law was enacted or at any of the other multiple signs given along the way) the danger the infection held and that the (yes, definitely) infected sister was going to be a problem.
Instead, the sisters don’t get a true chance to say goodbye and well, don’t say goodbye before things get worse. In my world, the infected sister would (unanimously, it’s already been discussed ha ha) definitely be put out of her misery for her sake and to avoid anyone else getting infected but this is a horror movie and people don’t make smart decisions. So. But can people make smarter decisions and still end up in crappy situations in horror-like movies because aside from the fact that that actually resembles the real world, the stupidity trope is beyond ridiculous. I can’t believe this trope is still around.
That one major criticism aside, this movie was actually really satisfying. Instead of following an ensemble cast, this is more intimate as we follow two sisters which was great. Overall, the movie is not too dark, not really gory, it’s not sinister. It’s thrilling. It’s fun. It’s got a good ending. It’s just right. If I had found this movie streaming on Netflix, I would have felt like I found a winner. You know that’s not an easy feat. So if you’re looking for a solid outbreak movie for the weekend, this one’s definitely a good option.
There are no bonus features on the DVD.
Own Viral on DVD today.