Infected (2013) poster

Infected (2013)

Rating:


USA. 2013.

Crew

Director/Story – Glenn Ciano, Screenplay – Glenn Ciano & Robert Rotondo Jr., Producers – Noah Kraft, Gino Pereira & Chad A. Verdi, Photography – Ben DeLuca III, Music – Eric Masunaga, Visual Effects – Sam Eilersten, Production Design – Robert Rotondo Jr.. Production Company – The Woodhaven Production Company.

Cast

Michael Madsen (Louis), William Forsythe (Dr. Ed Dennehey), Tom DeNucci (Andrew), Christy Romano (Kelly), Johnny Cicco (Seth), Jeanine Kane (Angela), Annie Worden (Jessica), Kevin DeCristofano (Jeremy), Michael Nicolosi (Matt), Wendy Overly (Grandma Annie), Tom Paolino (Sera’s Father), Sera Verdi (Sera), Tracey Sheldon (Hooker)


Plot

Louis and his old armed forces comrade Dr Dennehey get away with their families to a cabin in the woods for a weekend’s hunting. Around the area, people become infected with a variant on Lyme Disease that causes them to start devouring human flesh. The group soon find themselves under threat by the infected zombies outside, along with those within their group as they start to turn from the bites they have received.


Forget all the talk throughout about blood viruses or explanations involving variants on Lyme Disease, Infected is plainly and simply just another Zombie Film. This is something that becomes evident within moments of the film opening as we see hordes of shuffling dead in a field. Even if the term ‘zombie’ is never used throughout, the plot goes through all the standard tropes of the genre – the dead and their need to consume flesh; the infection by bite; the escalation as the threat overruns everywhere; the survivors holed off at siege against the zombie hordes.

Director Glenn Ciano does nothing much with the formula of the genre. There is an interesting initial set-up of a group of hunters and their families at a cabin in the woods. Here the film is dominated by the reasonably well-known names of Michael Madsen and William Forsythe. Both have taken on some solid roles here, Forsythe in particular.

The film sets up a potentially interesting scenario where the two parents seem hunting fanatics who regard various of their family members who fail to share the enthusiasm as lily-livered and weak. This sets up a plot that could go either of two ways – one where the hunters could be revealed to be full of hot air and trip up over their own pomposity, another where the children have to get a rude awakening and man up for the sake of survival. However, neither turns out to be the case and after being introduced these characters just fade into the background – in other words, the film could play out with almost any characters cast in it and make no difference.

The character tensions in the early sections and two name performances make the most interesting parts of the film. Once the zombie onslaught begins, the film becomes no more than another variant on Night of the Living Dead (1968) with the group at siege in the cabin from the zombies outside. Glenn Ciano delivers this with considerably less than the skill that George Romero did.

Glenn Ciano has made one other film with the previous Inkubus (2011) about a demon imprisoned in an abandoned police station.


Trailer here

Full film available here


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