Infection

Venezuela's entire economy was based on oil. For decades, it was one of the most prosperous and developed South American countries. Then it elected a dictator at the same time that oil collapsed.

Now the country is run by a madman, torture and murder are used to keep the police State in place and people are leaving by the millions. The "infected" are Venezuelans killing Venezuelans, and the epilogue about countries like Mexico, Colombia and Peru refusing entry to the country that sent them aid is true.

Unlike many of my American countrymen, I have no dog in the fight over who should be running Venezuela. I am sad to see the human suffering when any country collapses. I am, however, married to a Colombian-American, and I hear the antipathy in the discussions by my Colombian in-laws about the Venezuelans who are pushing the border between the two countries to collapse. I fear that the internal collapse of their country and the anger by the Venezuela's neighbors are going to make the lives of Venezuelans hell on earth for a long, long time.

Mediocre zombie movie. Better social commentary.

This is not another zombie movie. Yes, it does relies heavily on classic zombie cliches, but it's much more than that. Zombies are a metaphor for "Chavistas", those who blindly supported, and still support, the so-called Bolivarian revolution, the great political swindle that broke a country and its people. The infection itself is a metaphor for the distorted form of socialism imposed by Hugo Chavez (a great manipulator and a vulgar thug) and continued -even more distorted- by Nicolas Maduro. With that in mind, you have to watch the film as what it is: a reflection of what happens every day within the frontiers of this once great country. The "infection" has spread to all areas of life, and the zombies are those who succumb to it instead of fighting it. The parallelism between both horrors is appalling, and it is well achieved. Images of thousands fleeing the country due to the humanitarian crisis, have been used to recreate a post-infection exodus, and although the resource could have been better developed, it shows the very dark side of this massive migration wave: the general rejection Venezuelan migrants have encountered throughout its neighboring nations...so much for solidarity and Latin American fraternity. There is some outstanding acting, and upon researching, I've discovered that some characters are played by well-respected actors of long trajectory and experience (Leonidas Urbina, Ananda Troconis, Rubén Guevara, Francis Rueda), and it shows in the energy and pace of the film. They make the film believable. Some settings were really interesting, as well. I mostly regret the ending, which was rushed, ambiguous, unresolved. You get the idea of what happens, but it could have been so much better developed, specially after the good dose of suspense and sheer horror that the film makes you feel at times. In all, a very decent movie, about a terrible desease that has brought what once was one of the most promising emerging countries to its knees, helped by the indifference and shameful silence of the world: the sick and distorted Bolivarian socialism - which has proved to be neither Bolivarian nor socialist-. I encourage you to watch it if you want to see more of just zombies and gore.

If you've seen a lot of zombie movies in your lifetime, this movie ultimately doesn't offer anything spectacular or new ideas to the table. The characters weren't fleshed out enough to the point where everything just blended like a bland soup. The only thing keeping me from lowering the score any further is the way the pandemic was being introduced along with clear and realistic approach to solve the issue.

Overall, this movie ended up being a watered down 28 days later with no sense of originality or identity of its own to give it a lasting effect.

If you're a huge zombie fan, there are much better options out there, this is sadly not one of them.

By now I have seen so many incarnations of ... zombie movies, there probably isn't anything new I will discover anytime soon. No pun intended and that being said, the movie at hand here also works as a drama. It feels ... real if you suspend your disbelief and take zombies as something that actually exists.

In this case it is about finding a cure - whether that is possible or not ... that is a different story ... or maybe it isn't. Of course this binary, so either it exists or it doesn't ... but it is well enough told, if you let the movie do its magic on you. I was expecting more of a Covid related story myself, but maybe it is better the way it handled things in the end.

Well, taking into consideration that this is a Venezuelan movie, then things weren't actually all that bad. And truth be told, the movie was definitely watchable for a zombie movie.

However, if you compare it to some of the Western or Asian zombie movies, then "Infección" sort of pales in comparison and stands out as being a mere mediocre foray into the zombie genre. When in fact the movie does offer nothing new to the zombie genre.

It was the fact that this was a non-American zombie movie that sort of made the movie interesting for me. Story-wise and contents-wise, then "Infección" wasn't overly impressive. Entertaining enough for sure, but not impressive or outstanding.

The zombie make-up was okay. Again, not outstanding. And for a life-long zombie fan like myself, I found that the movie was grossly lacking in the gore and mayhem department. I enjoy watching decaying and slow shambling zombies, not fast-running agile zombies that are little more than people in tattered garments with a few splatters of blood here and there.

If you are new to the zombie genre, then "Infección" is perhaps a good movie, but for those in the audience that have sat through an abundance of zombie movies already, it doesn't bring much of anything new to the table.

I am rating "Infección" a mediocre five out of ten stars. While it was watchable and a zombie movie - which in itself counts for something with me - it just wasn't an outstanding movie in the zombie genre. It did, however, put Venezuela on the zombie world map, so thumbs up for that.