Disc Reviews

Antisocial Review

8th Apr 2014

Antisocial sees five university friends gather at a house party to ring in the New Year – but outside an outbreak of a virus is infecting the world. They become trapped in the house, they lock themselves in with nothing but each other, their phones and laptops to keep them company. They search the internet for information and find videos of the chaos going on in the world outside. Slowly they start to realize that its their favorite social media site spreading the virus – using subliminal messages to draw people back into the site, and is attacking their brains. Trapped in the house they become more paranoid, can they trust those around them? Which one of them is infected? And they can only use social media to find out whats going on in the outside world.

The films opening/credits scene is eye catching and holds your attention, there’s also a great scene with Christmas lights and an infected girl, visually its great but as the films main stand out scene you might be a little disappointed. The story is a good idea, we all spend so much of our time on social media and the internet it could be possible to eventually be the thing that kills us all off, that infects our brains and make us mindless zombies. But they haven’t jumped on that the films action is slow and while there are a few good jumps and moments overall its not as exciting, maybe is would have worked better as a short. By the end you are willing it to be over.

The background music is jarring and sometimes distracts from the action. The acting isn’t the best, and there are moments of hysterical shouting scenes that will make you want everyone to get the virus and explode. The lead actress comes across so weak you don’t believe her sudden change to surviver girl, and she has a totally unnecessary subplot thats mentioned once and then forgotten about, is it there to make us care about her? Because it doesn’t work.

Overall its a good idea – social media can be bad, and eventually destroy us, but I just wish it had been executed much better.