Heading to a special festival, a group of friends get into an accident along the way which requires them to stop at the festival earlier than expected, but when a zombie outbreak stalls their plans by putting them into the scenario it forces them to fight back against the creatures to get away alive.
There wasn't a whole lot to this one that worked. One of the few likable factors here is the general setup and output of the zombie action within this one that develops at a solid enough pace. The zombie action is pretty constant throughout here as the initial outbreak occurs from the very start and happens to go through a series of solid and frantic encounters that take place on the grounds of the festival and surrounding areas which provides this with some fun scenarios. The swarming action here is quite solid as there are some fun moments when they take out the festival, follow the group through the surrounding woods, and the series of encounters when trying to get to safety that showcases the fun of the practical effects-driven features where the constant flesh-ripping, devouring, and full-on wounds offer some rather fun moments involving fantastic effects-work. These all manage to bring about some great aspects here even though this one has a lot of drawbacks that hold it back. This mainly stems from the fact that none of the characters here come across as anything resembling normal human beings. With a time-honored trope of a group of teenagers that are barely able to go five seconds without acting like irresponsible douchebags more concerned with themselves than anyone else around, display an alarming sense of self-centered interactions that make for a truly moronic series of decision-making skills, or demonstrating such a profound lack of situational awareness that it's nearly impossible to believe they're friends, it takes very little time at all before they're considered disposable. That shouldn't be surprising considering the source material for the film and the friends throughout here but it doesn't make the film any easier to get through, especially when everyone starts arguing with each other in the middle of everything. That ties into the other issue with this one in how there's so little that ties into the original that it feels incredibly flimsy to tie this with the franchise. The lack of explanation for the zombies is a solid touch but beyond that, there's almost nothing here with the zombies themselves behaving quite unlike the original creatures who can run and think, plan out attacks, or just flat out appear out of nowhere to launch a surprise attack in the middle of a scene which doesn't do anything like how the original interacted. The attempts at connecting it back through storyline means are immensely flimsy with some bizarre and awkward choices, and it all comes to a head with the backward political commentary on high-school cliques as a means of trying to make a statement like the original did. However, this is such a moronic hill to stand on any attempt to say something about it is lame and feels quite artificial. These are all enough to bring this one down overall.
Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.
