Macabre…ish Horror Review: Unhuman
Unhuman, 2022/ 1 hr 31 min
High school students on a field trip crash on the bus in the forest after the windshield is splashed with blood. Once the wrecked bus comes to a halt, something sounds like it’s climbed on top of the bus and stomping around.
The news warns of a chemical attack nearby and after something bloody hits a side window outside the bus, what looks like a teen stands outside the door. The driver is forced to open the door and the chaperone, Mr. Lorenzo (Peter Giles) gets mauled while asking if he has insurance.
This person, a metalhead is a mutation and he’s strong, violent are gnarly looking. Many of the kids make it off of the bus while he’s attacking the adults. It’s suddenly foggy outside and while looking for help they find a horse that’s been partly reduced to ground meat.
Some of the kids are thinking it’s zombies but whatever it is, it’s roaring in the background and they need cover. They find an abandoned apartment building and they get to work fortifying it.
Later they hear the friends outside begging for helo and almost do until they hear that growling again and see the mutated man outside. He seems to be using Candice as bate to draw them out. But Ever (Brianne Tju) can’t resist trying to help her, it gets Candice killed and makes a way for the metalhead zombie and the now zombie bus driver, to enter.
They hide in a room and another student finds his way in and he’s ok. But the zombies must have followed him in because they’re on the run again. And they lose more of the group, Hunt (C. J. LeBlanc) and Danny (Uriah Shelton) fought hard.
Looking around the room they ended up in, are mannequins, all representing them. And their archetypes. The zombie bus driver (Tony Donno) breaks in and Randall (Benjamin Wadsworth) beats him to a pulp, stunning the others.
It’s near dark and Ever and Randall are at serious odds about what to do and how to do it. So they do their own things, Ever is going to search for a cell phone to call for help and Steven (Drew Scheid) is tagging along. She finds the bag with all their phones and they’re all broken. But then she spots the radio. That’s when the double cross happens. Steven injects her and promises she won’t remember anything. And Randall arrives suddenly.
Ever isn’t quite out and she overhears the whole conversation that takes place between Randall, Steven and Chip (Josh Mikel), the metalhead. This was all a plan from the beginning.
The plan is off the rails though because the chaperone and the bus driver Wayne wasn’t supposed to die. But Chip is trying to explain that the drug will wipe all their memories. He thinks he’s killing the plague that are bullies. And they still think, that even with the deaths, they’ll still get away with it.
Meanwhile, as Ever lies there listening, she’s being motivated by their dead chaperone. She tries sneaking away but Chip has other plans for her and she beats the life out of him.
And at the same time, Randall and Steven return to the others to inject the classmates they have in a cage. Then gets the others ready to kill to survive the next ‘zombie’ onslaught.
Randall also announces that Ever is dead but Ever has other plans.
They’ll have to fight for their lives but at least it’ll be fair.
This Blumhouse production was directed by Marcus Dunstan. I had two false starts with this one but I am glad I gave it that third try because it turned out to be an intriguing concept. It’s well thought out and well paced. The color grading was a lot for me but the effects and ‘zombie’ acting was pretty good. If I was a teenager I would probably love this movie.