Antisocial (2013)

Number Rolled: 86

Movie Name/Year: Antisocial (2013)

Tagline: This virus kills.

Genre: Horror

Length: 89 minutes

Rating: NR

Production Companies: Black Fawn Films, Breakthrough Entertainment

Producer: Chad Archibald, Cody Calahan, Marina Cordoni, Christopher Giroux, Ira Levy, Peter Williamson

Director: Cody Calahan

Writer: Chad Archibald, Cody Calahan

Actors: Michelle Mylett, Cody Ray Thompson, Adam Christie, Ana Alic, Romaine Waite, Ry Barrett, Eithan Shalmon, Laurel Brandes, Kate Vokral, Charlie Hamilton, Colin Murphy, Kirill Belousov

Blurb from Netflix: Unbeknownst to five friends who’ve gathered for a New Year’s Eve house party, an epidemic has erupted outside, breeding chaos all over the planet.

Selina’s Point of View:

Cat and I greatly disagree about this film.

First of all, I really believe you shouldn’t watch the trailer for this film. I don’t know which trailer Cat watched, but the one I watched gave away literally everything. Hell, it nearly gave away the main plot point. It was ridiculous and I’m glad I watched it after the film or I would have been pissed.

Secondly, I really enjoyed the film.

Sure, there were some basic tropes that reminded me of the tropes that Cabin in the Woods (2012) made fun of, but they were used surprisingly well. Aside from that the main point of the film and the origin of the “zombies” was relatively unique – or at least under-utilized.

It was definitely a low budget film and the beginning was slow, but I feel like Cody Calahan (Baptized in Blood: Last Line Lady, Antisocial 2, Let Her Out) did a hell of a job with the funds he had to work with. There was some crazy CGI happening and some incredibly realistic sounds accompanying the violence that impressed me a great deal. Not everything was spot on, but when it was good… it was very good.

I enjoyed the majority of the actors, too. Michelle Mylett (Letterkenny, Antisocial 2, Weak Ends) was a wonderful choice for this film. Mylett really embodied her character and made me care.

I had an issue with Cody Ray Thompson (Warrior, Antisocial 2, Clementine). It wasn’t his acting, his acting was fine. However, where Cat watched Antisocial on Sunday morning before news of our latest Hollywood causality, I watched the film later at night. Thompson looks a LOT like Anton Yelchin (Broken Horses, Green Room, Burying the Ex) during many of the scenes.

For those of you who don’t know, Anton Yelchin passed away Sunday. He was 27 years old when a fatal traffic accident took his life. He was one of my favorite young actors. We here at Trust the Dice have always been fans of Yelchin’s. He was amazing in Fright Night (2011), he broke our hearts in Odd Thomas (2013), and he brought to life an amazing reboot of Chekov in the newer Star Trek (2009-2016) series of films. His death was sudden and terribly saddening to us.

Seeing Thompson in this film felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest. He was a fine actor, but his face just looked so much like Yelchin’s. It made me a little queasy. It wasn’t enough to ruin the film for me, and even if it had been, I’d have tried to not let it affect my score.

For those wondering, Yelchin will appear in five films that have either been completed, or were in post-production at the time of his death. In 2016 we will see him in We Don’t Belong Here, Star Trek Beyond, and Porto. In 2017 we’ll see him in Thoroughbred in what may be his final performance. I say “may be” because he has one other film, Rememory, in post-production, but there’s no concrete release date scheduled for it according to IMDB.

Cat’s Point of View:

Yesterday, my “brother” (from another mother) got married to a fabulous gal whom I think the world of. It’s been a whirlwind the last couple of days. My daughter, husband, and I were all in the wedding party. I’ll spare you my gushing about my adorable flower girl, though.

After corsets, lightsaber battles on the dance floor, and an overload of go-go-go; I was actually looking forward to sitting down this morning to unwind while watching this movie. We’re waiting to kick off Father’s Day shenanigans until after my tween regains consciousness. (She’s STILL asleep past the lunch hour, but she needs it!)

That’s probably the most interesting information that I have to share with you today. Sadly, the movie disappointed me.

I think that the concept was interesting. There was such potential for the commentary on social media culture. Alas, the execution of this film failed to even come close to hitting the mark.

I do want to commend whomever put the trailer together for this one. With a movie as lackluster as this one was, I was fully expecting the trailer to give it all away. It actually didn’t. Kudos.

That is unfortunately the last of the good things I have to say about this film. It started out very ‘meh’ for me and then just turned into ‘ugh.’ They borrowed from so many recipes that the Frankenstein’s Monster that they created was just a messy jumble of things that I’ve already seen before – and were done better elsewhere.

Though, I will leave you with a giggle (maybe). Every time I heard the character’s name, Steve; I thought of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009) for absolutely no reason whatsoever (other than the thought of the speech-enabled monkey shouting “STEVE!” was more interesting than this movie).

My mind goes to odd places when I’m bored.

Skip this movie and go find one of the better ones out there with a social media message. Unfriended (2014) has already hit cable movie networks.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 0%

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 17%

Netflix’s Prediction for Selina – 3/5

Selina’s Trust-the-Dice Score – 3.5/5

Netflix’s Prediction for Cat – 3/5

Cat’s Trust-the-Dice Score – 1.5/5

The Random Rating: R

Movie Trailer: