Virus X

You don't have to watch it for originality. You have seen it a thousand times, a deadly virus being made by a mad scientist (Joe Zaso) being under control of someone (Sybil Danning) who wants world domination. Here the virus is simple, it's just a deadly influenza, know as H1N1. The scientist working for the dominator got intoxicated by the virus. So it's a fight between life and death. The directing by Ryan Stevens Harris wasn't that bad. And the simple effects used were okay too, just some blood on faces and some sickening vomit, but it surely worked. Even the acting was okay, Joe played his typical role. But of course there is Sybil. She's the main role in it and only appears for a few moments but she's still okay. She's aging but still got the skills. It's just a simple flick that keeps you attracted by the editing, the only problem I got was that at the end, from around 55 minutes, it drops a bit of suspense and even the scene were Sybil got infected is a bit too long. Nice effort.

If you're one of the few people out there who look forward to Albert Pyun's movies, I think you're in for a treat. We may actually have the first director actually inspired by Pyun here. Along with the awesome overacting (at least one of them must have gone to Billy Drago's school of acting), I was in B movie heaven. Featuring a rich psychopath who essentially wants to rule the world (right out of a James Bond movie) and a gun-wielding killer who ruminates philosophically before he kills his victims, Virus X really knows how to lay on the cheese, and yet it has this deadly earnestness, like all the best unintentionally funny movies. That's not to say that this is a poorly made movie. It's actually surprisingly competent, and I thought the directing shows promise. Maybe with more money and a better concept, we'll see some good scifi thrillers coming from him. As it stands, this is more of a rainy day rental than anything else. Cybil Danning shows up as the aforementioned rich psychopath, in case you're a fan. I'm not. But, hey, it just increases the B movie cred.

I give movies 2 stars IF and ONLY if .. I can make it all the way through it without walking off. And that is where this belongs .. 2 stars and in the reject bin .. the one where you can buy 3 DVDs for a dollar. The acting was poor .. the audio/soundtrack was incredibly mediocre (and this was the best part!) .. the setting completely out of whack .. more like an abandoned cargo ship than a building .. the dialogue? .. it just doesn't get much worse than this .. (honestly .. I've heard worse but not by much) .. and there were all these little screw ups throughout .. so obviously made on a $15 budget .. they couldn't afford to re-shoot even a 2 minute scene that was screwed up.

Sybil Danning was the brightest spot in the whole movie .. all 8 or 9 minutes of her. She is the epitome of the B-movie actress .. competent .. but not a star. I wonder though .. is there ANY movie that Sybil is in that she doesn't appear either in the shower or the bath tub? Sadly .. she is showing her age and really should cut out doing those scenes.

From the movie cover for "Virus X", I had expected something else entirely than what it turned out to be. The cover looked fairly interesting, but the movie turned out to be far from it.

The story in "Virus X" is somewhat captivating in some aspects, but the overall picture is a tarnished and dull result. It was like the air went out of the balloon way before the movie had reached the mid-point of the length. However, the approach to the H1N1 virus strain was perhaps the best take in the movie.

As for the cast in this movie, well I can't say that I am familiar with any of them, nor do I even recall having seen any of their faces anywhere. And that is a good thing, because you don't need to be a big, famous Hollywood star to be a good actor. There were some fairly good performances in the movie, but there were also some mediocre ones. And I would say the overall acting scale was just above mediocre, so don't get your hopes up for this one.

I had expected more suspense and thrills, perhaps even the occasional scare, but there was no such things. There were some build-ups for some, but they turned out in an anti-climatic way unfortunately.

"Virus X" comes out on the other side of the tunnel with a flat tire, so to speak. It was, to me, a disappointing movie, and I will not be making a second return to give it another chance. For movies of this caliber, there are others available that have better story lines, plots, and that are more interesting. Sadly, "Virus X" failed to deliver.

I found a cure to "Virus X" and that was the 'Stop' and 'Eject' buttons.

It's hard to describe this without feeling like I'm providing a spoiler in some way.

Yes, it's a low budget film and most of its weaknesses are connected to the lack of realism that a bigger budget would have brought. At the same time, the director disguises most of those problems and they don't distract from the story.

If you've ever seen the TV series Testees, this is something like that turned into a horror film. There's sort of a zombie tease going on with it too. Killing Room also comes to mind.

In short, doctors, labs, experiments, test subjects, secrets, blood, biting, infection, chemical weapons, funding from the rich and psychotic.