In less than twelve months, the genre gods gave us both 28 Years Later and 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Individually and collectively, they reminded horror fans of the genre’s seemingly limitless flexibility, but they were — and still are — the exception to an overcrowded field. Defined, redefined, and re-redefined by George A. Romero and his successors, chief among them director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland in 2002 with 28 Days Later, and director Zack Snyder and writer James Gunn two years later with their Dawn of the Dead remake.
Since 28 Days Later arrived in theatres more than two decades ago, “fast” zombies (or “the Infected”) have carved out a healthy niche on film, streaming, and cable alongside Romero’s traditional slow-moving iteration, but novelty, originality, and innovation have been in short supply. Look no further than this contribution by Adam MacDonald (Backcountry), This Is Not a Test, for an example.
Adapted from Courtney Summers’ 2012 YA novel of the same name, This Is Not a Test centres its overly familiar narrative on Sloane Price (Olivia Holt), a depressed teen. MacDonald’s adaptation opens on Sloane as she contemplates suicide with a sharp cutting tool in her bathroom. She’s already written her farewell letter and has a bleak future assured by an abusive father (Jeff Roop), a deceased mother, and an absent sister, Lily (Joelle Farrow).
Within the span of a few minutes, the unexpected arrival of a zombie/rage virus in her neighbourhood changes everything. Attacked and bitten by a blood-soaked zombie, her father exits This Is Not a Test permanently, leaving an unprepared Sloane to fend for herself or die trying. A desperate, newly invigorated Sloane flees into the morning light, pursued by a pack of rage-filled, shrieking zombies.
Sloane’s survival instinct decidedly takes hold, leaving her suicidal ideation temporarily aside, but not the clinical depression or the years of physical, mental, and emotional trauma. Luckily for Sloane, her journey converges with several other high schoolers: Cary (Corteon Moore), group/team leader; Trace (Carson MacCormac), the obligatory shortsighted hothead; Grace Casper (Chloe Avakian), Trace’s sister; Rhys (Froy Gutierrez), the closest Sloane has to actual friend and later, a potential romantic interest.
Almost immediately, the survivors find sanctuary in their high school. They have enough food, supplies, and water to last them several weeks, if not longer. Crucially, barricading the school’s entrances and exits proves to be a challenge, albeit not an insurmountable one. When one of their teachers, Mr. Baxter (Luke Macfarlane), mysteriously appears on the premises, bloodied, bruised, and possibly bitten, a new, not particularly novel problem appears with him: What to do with someone who may or may not be bitten? Do they send him back to the outside world, or keep him close, wait to see if he turns, and if he does, dispatch him with a brain-destroying blow to the head?
If everything so far gives readers a nagging sense of déjà vu, it’s because nothing in This Is a Test besides Sloane’s pre-zombie apocalypse condition counts as a new twist on old, shop-worn tropes. Conflict within the group leads to one boneheaded decision after another; a firearm introduced early in the film reappears to cause mischief, a gut wound, and possibly, a non-zombie-related death. Staying in the high school and waiting out the apocalypse has its appeal for the characters, but not the glacial, stagnant narrative.
The question of what to do with Baxter starts intriguingly enough, but, again, it covers familiar ground. However, it’s preceded by an oddly underdeveloped sequence where Baxter sneaks around the high school, borderline stalking a sleeping or unaware Sloane. Perhaps there was more to Sloane and Baxter’s pre-apocalypse relationship as student and teacher in the source novel. If there was, though, there’s little evidence of it here–just a momentum-stopping, semi-resolved plot thread.
MacDonald favours a non-linear structure, starting with the initial outbreak in Sloane’s neighbourhood before flashing forward to the image of the blood-splattered teen as she arrives at the high school and then flashing back to fill in details. A more straightforward narrative could have avoided This Is Not a Test’s stop-start hiccups.
For all of the flashes backwards and forwards, we learn little about the other students, their background, or even their personalities, leaving them, and the actors playing them, floundering. They’re adrift in an undercooked script, forced to deliver banal, expository dialogue while a brooding, monosyllabic Sloane decides whether to live, die, or take another nap on a gym mat.
