John Hughes teen comedy meets splatter, zombie horror is the basic concept in this new movie from Blumhouse and Epix. The previous entry in their streaming movie slate was the haunting and compelling Torn Hearts. So, I enthusiastically dived right in to Unhuman. While the film does have its exciting sequences, the comedy never quite works for me. In addition, the movie features what initially appears as a clever twist, but also fails to completely work logically. What it all adds up to is a movie that occasionally entertains, doesn’t succeed as a whole.
A group of high school students board a school bus for a field trip, but their trip totally gets derailed when a wrong turn lands them into an area where zombies attack. Because the trip features quite the assortment of school personalities and cliques makes unification in the face of great danger a bigger challenge for the class. As the kids step up to protect themselves, it eventually becomes apparent that something closer to home is responsible for their situation.
Written and directed by Marcus Dunstan, who co-wrote with Patrick Melton, Unhuman attempts to bring something bold and inventive to the genre, and has a some great ideas, but struggles to pull everything off well. Dunstan and his crew deliver some rousing attack sequences, filled with some splat-happy gore, but their attempt to offer audiences something deeper and meaningful just does not completely work.
On the plus side, the film has a great cast, most of whom all perform appropriately, but I feel like these actors deserve better writing. Unholy stars Blake Burt, Lucy Burvant, Ali Gallo, Peter Giles, Lo Graham, Dana Ling Wau, C.J. Le Blanc, Drew Scheid, Uriah Shelton, Benjamin Wadsworth, Brianne Tju, and several others. The real standouts of the movie are most definitely Brianne Tju, Benjamin Wadsworth and Uriah Shelton shining wonderfully in their roles.
I would certainly not go so far as to fervently recommend staying away from Unhuman, nor would I, of course, highly recommend it. It is a fine horror movie entry in the zombie genre that has bigger goals in mind, but does not attain them.