Island Escape

For those that enjoy low budget flicks this isn't the worst one. The story is decent, it's a sci fi horror action movie.

The movie goes along at a decent pace which is the only thing working for it, the budget went to the makeup department which is done quite good for the "monsters" and the rest probably for the main actors gym and protein powder as we do get a shirtless scene.

I'm giving it 5 stars because the camera work is okay and it's all well shot with good lighting which is something so many low budget movies fail at. Along with solid story elements and the fact it kept my attention enough for me to finish it.

First the good part.

Bruce Wemple have written a really good story for a movie, with some dialogues and twists that show a promising future for him as a script writer.

Now the bad part.

Acting, clothes and equipment for a supposed elite special ops team - instead they looks rather as the weekend bbq buddies with a grill, some beer and 20 pounds of pork.

Top secret highly advanced research laboratory on an remote island, that dabble in DNA and similar things to make humanity resistant to viruses, in two small tents ???

You got to be kidding me !

Something must have gone wrong there. They must have a tight schedule filming and suddenly the building they wanted to film in suddenly said no for some reason, or something.

With a big budget and better actors, this could been a really good film - so i give it an extra star rating for that.

Although some reviewers on here are complaining about the "convoluted" time warp story line, I really didn't have any trouble following it.

Sure at the beginning you're wondering what exactly is going on, however that's part of the intrigue of the movie. It pretty quickly becomes apparent how the time warp system works and what the perils are.

The acting is good overall, the characters are well written and sympathetic, and the practical effects are really good. The monsters in particular are quite scary and there were a couple good jump scares as well.

If you're a fan of mid budget horror movies, I would highly recommend it.

When the daughter of an ultra-rich CEO is taken hostage at an experimental research facility, on a remote island.

A ragtag team of blue collar mercenaries are compiled to get her back.

However...little do they suspect what they'll be up against...

...Zombies. It's zombies.

The whole thing is a low budget action-horror-sci-fi film, featuring some middle brow acting, decent practical effects, and- what seems like- a pretty straight forward storyline (at least at first).

However, it's mostly just a group of people running around the woods with guns.

With an incredibly bizarre sci-fi angle spun in.

Where "the island resets itself every 3 days".

Which apparently means that new versions of themselves will come to the island every three days...while everyone left on the island past the three day point will turn into zombies.

Meaning that they are effectively caught in a neverending timeloop, fighting against zombified versions of themselves.

So...they must escape the island within that three day window...or accept their zombie fate.

That is, if they aren't killed by the island's "self destruction sequence", which the company behind the research facility claims they have initiated.

It's all kind of weird.

And hard to follow.

As it doesn't make a whole lot of logical sense.

Especially when the bit about traveling back through time- and going through wormholes- comes into play.

It's hard not to get lost in the foray.

So all you can do is try to roll with it.

Even if you don't understand exactly what is going on.

Perhaps it's all just over my head.

But I don't think so.

The complexity of it all is certainly intriguing.

But, in reality, it's just a poorly thought out, and forcibly constructed, storyline.

Turning what seemed like a straight forward zombie island escape, into a confounding sci-fi conundrum.

3 out of 10 (for trying).

Experiments, testing, cloning, and studies into things man was not meant to understand or change are always headquartered on little, out-of-the-way islands, then, someone has to go there, usually after something horrific has happened, to try and fix or retrieve things. That's what happens here as well, except that our heroes are mercenaries, hired to find the daughter of the man who hired them.

On this island, though, well, there are some things going on that they aren't told about at all, and, unfortunately, it's not going to go well for them when they do. Things in the woods are stalking them, there are strange discoveries in the woods of duplicate items the team members have on them already.

It plays a lot like a syfy channel/asylum lower-budget sci fi film, but is a lot bettter than it should be - certainly better than the "sharknado" films, in my opinion. Would recommend if you don't have too high expectations.