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Eradication has not been particularly known for its good reviews and the film punkers the viewer’s experience with its boredom. If anticipation is an element you are hoping for, then, much like many post-apocalyptic films, this one delivers the bare minimum. Most of the action happens within a man’s home, and the watching crowd is immersed in a world that is gloomy however, the solitary man trapped in a house filled with mystery seems to charge out into the deadly forest that surrounds his place of residence. Even though it sits below the category of good cinema and shatters the norm of motion pictures, it does finish off with an appealing tone, although very low appeal for almost all mid budget films. The film incorporates lots of low end COVID films we have witnessed over the years.
Our protagonist, David (Harry Aspinwall), makes an innocent routine of eating well, exercising, and speaking to Sam (Anita Abdinezhad) through Zoom. David’s blood just might be the missing element that a scientist, Sam, aiding to cure the world ravaging virus needs. But David is different; he is bound by the chains of the new world and worried about meeting a flesh-sucking monster. Sam is the main character, and the audience is waiting for happiness for David to meet. At this very second for him, none of those thoughts matter David is simply undergoing a new reality where he has to break through the bars of bondage, surrenderes only to rejoice with Sam.
Our protagonist cannot leave his compound, and if he does, he is strongly advised against doing so after dark. Drones that hover in silence supply the forest. Trees are guarded by enigmatic men in yellow hazmat suits and gas masks who are ‘willing’ to do anything to someone who poses a threat to them.
Aspinwall’s credit score has taken a hit, and he is a good David, who had to act as a character that is slowly losing control of his mental state, which the audience already knows too well from other films. That said, Abdinezhad is good too. They all have done it. The film doesn’t work, but they do.
In truth, the concern with Eradication is that it never seems to do anything different with this story. Everything prior to the final moments had felt like a clone of other survival horror stories that came into the limelight in the early 2010s. Plotting the story into a pandemic in 2022 is different from a few years back, but all in all, nothing here is far removed from what you would find in The Walking Dead. In a way, it is like a nostalgia trip into a bygone era of disease themed horror thrillers, including the way it waits until the last few minutes before springing into action.
Though the last few minutes are absolutely brilliant. There is a brilliantly tense sequence complete with high quality makeup work and an infection that’s sneaky. Darkness is employed well. Director Daniel Byers has real energy and visual cleverness to create a memorable scare. I unfortunately found myself wishing the movie had that gusto for the entire runtime, and the story as told was a whole lot more propulsive. I guess the interesting bit for me is in the real world I spent an entire year sitting around slowly losing my mind while quietly hoping things would get better. Not that interesting to see on screen.
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