A KILLING STRAIN - *

DDirected By : Daniel Maldonado. Starring : Tom Lagleder, Nina Leon, Vena D’ Abato. Horror / Zombie. USA. 2010. Running Time : 101 Minutes. Certificate : 18.

Here we go again with yet more low budget zombie nonsense in the form of A Killing Strain heading to the shelves of your local Poundland soon. Ripping off its’ influences, its like a bloody foetus conceived by 28 Days Later and Night Of The Living Dead, even down to being holed up in a remote farmhouse which is coming under attack by the undead.

The worst part is that it actually starts off reasonably promising as we see an experiment taking place of trying to bring someone back to life. Inevitably the brown stuff hits the spinning thing as the patient comes back to life and consumes the person carrying out the experiment.

From here on in we are in familiar territory and this just feels like it has been done so many times before and so much better. Nothing in this film feels original or makes you go “wow”, its just poorly written, acted and executed. You find yourself not caring about any of the characters which is pretty rare, well unless you include the Friday the 13th remake.

I’m all for low budget horror and I appreciate people in the horror genre aren’t given millions to throw at their project but I can cope with that so long as the film carries an element of originality and has a story that keeps you captured and entertained. With this you just feel like none of this is present, someone had an idea to make a zombie horror but what they finally came up with fell woefully short of many better films that have gone before it.

There is nothing in this film I can honestly recommend to you, I don’t like being too critical but nothing in here is worth your time or your money. It seems Daniel Maldonado cares about his horror films and I personally wish him success in the future as a young director but this is just woeful and not enjoyable at all. The fact it runs for 101 minutes doesn’t help either, i’m not saying it would have made the viewing experience more enjoyable, just less painful.

Extras : The disc came with no added extras which may be seen as a blessing.

Kristian Keogh.