Writer: D. Todd Deeken
Director: George Mendeluk
Terror is contagious!
The Terror Experiment (aka Fight or Flight) is a very mixed bag, both in terms of quality and content. Although it’s a movie with zombies (of the infected living variety) that’s not really what it’s about. Most good zombie movies have political or social commentary as a subtext; The Terror Experiment is a political commentary that has zombies as a subtext.
The film begins with a man pompously demanding “don’t label me a terrorist, I’m a patriot” as he prepares a terrorist attack. With rather unlikely ease he sneaks into a high security government building and plants a chemical bomb which releases a cloud of toxic gas. This gas is a chemical weapon that causes “extreme anger and paranoia” in other word, it’s a Rage type virus that turns people into living zombies.
Since the building is such high security, it immediately goes into lockdown. This prevents anyone from escaping and leaves a small band of survivors trapped at the top.
All fair enough, but then Deeken overeggs the pudding. To give some unneeded extra urgency to the situation, the main survivor is trying to find his estranged wife who also works in the building. And, of course, his cute kid who just happened to be there as well. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the film is set on Christmas Eve for no reason at all other than to allow shots of wrecked Christmas decorations and a throwaway line at the end.
But as I said, this isn’t really a zombie movie; it’s a conspiracy story. The zombie virus turns out to be a government research project – no surprise there. What is unusual is the lengths the government will go to in order to prevent the public discovering what’s going on. The lockdown is simply stage one in a well established “destruction and deniability” process. The authorities have no interest in saving the survivors, they only care about covering up this mess. References to other famous conspiracy theories such as MK-12, Area 51 and in particular 911 all underscore the film’s basic message: the government is as much your enemy as the terrorists. In case you miss the 911 parallels there are lines like “The firemen and policemen are going to be heroes”.
It’s an interesting slant that saves The Terror Experiment from being just a poor zombie movie. But it is still a poor zombie movie. The setup doesn’t gel (not even the government would have a research lab like that in the middle of an office block!), the writing is lazy with cheap attempts to pull emotional strings and the direction can’t decide whether to go for action or suspense. Characterisation is minimal with the main character originally resembling Clark Kent to underline his transformation into a hero. And by an amazing coincidence one of the survivors happens to be a scientist who can conveniently explain to everyone what’s going on.
On the plus side the pacing is good. It’s a short movie and never falls flat, with the infodumps split up rather than all coming at once. And the conspiracy stuff, whilst not exactly subtle, doesn’t rely on people lecturing each other.
Overall The Terror Experiment is not a good film, but it’s not a dreadful one either. It’s clearly aiming to be The Crazies for a post-911 world. That’s a big reach and unfortunately neither script nor directing are up to the task. And yet… maybe I’m being overly sympathetic because I like conspiracy theories, but despite its significant flaws I rather liked it.