Decay truly adapts and takes on the independent film market from a new angle with first time director and writer Luke Thompson, who is actually an Accelerator Physics PhD, but decided to put his own money into this ultra-low budgeted production using a slightly more intriguing plot, however battling the same creations – zombies. First, viewers need to understand, that the film cost £2000 which converts into $13,939 at the current rate, and then followed that the actors not professional actors rather physicist, hence an amateurish production high on motivation and vast depth on location. The location, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, which one must admit as an original area to shoot at and leading to some excellent usage of real tunnels which provide their own level of terror and chilling shadows. Lastly, Luke, who understands his limitations, made his film a free download under the Creative Common License.
The theory implementation herein, during a maintenance issue with various students and professors below working on the device and a malfunctioning problem with the accelerator occurs releasing a massive amount of radiation causing the particles to reorganize and they cause an apocalypse of zombies. The plot might seem farfetched; however, the theory seems more believable than just infected virus, recently famous articles of individuals fearful of scientists using the particle accelerator creating black holes to plagues. Many people, especially those of fearful of the unknown, or advance technological systems worry in life that scientists will lead to the eventually downfall of humanity. Although, this fear often finds its way into horror films, and this case a sci-fi horror, as it falls in the categories of splicing-genetics, regenerating dead cells and to fictional attributes of characters of Dr. Jekyll, Dr. Frankenstein and even Dr. Vannacutt. But the background of a scientist that understand exactly what he is showing makes it a tad more believability and creating a varying degree of spooky and hidden clandestine meanings to the actions and situations that occur in characters’ lives. As for the zombie theme, this film lends the best and newest avenue for the cost, involved for the production, with the note that the cast becomes the biggest sacrifice that occurs, which affect the delivery of lines and lack of understanding of interaction of characters. Remember and recall the cast likely are friends, which finds commonplace in horror films, however, these friends are all scientists, likely to communicate in advance manners and wooden personalities although might be a generalization felt by many of the viewers, rather than matter fact.
Luke provides good production qualities, with sounded pacing, fair amount of blood, light in the gore but zombie effects nicely perform, no CGI, rather just practical effects, a solid return to old school development. The character development and set-up take time, yet stumbles in the time-consuming aspects, especially with the scenes taking place with labs, offices, and in front of computers, far less thrilling when watching it. The tension finds itself only heighten in the tunnels, which finds itself as a great resource for this film, as both location and character, endless twists, and turns with hidden grabbing zombie hands. Two sad letdowns in the form of zombies, using such and advance piece of equipment the zombies appear average, not one-bit difference, of any perforce notion. A valuable missed opportunity was noted by many viewers and fans in general, the second the kills are all generic, nothing difference to reference, one would think that a lab would show something unique, a laser cutting device or melting gases. Sadly, the gore lacks majorly from the film, while still appealing to others as the film has the express permission by the director for free downloads.
A vastly inspired layout of a new version of the zombie genre, from a physics scientist and director, one in the same, gives a new link to follow and pursue, with larger budgets might have that next great horror film, completely new dimension zombies, actual actors and delicious special effects. Nevertheless, Decay, which occurs in real life within science, the human body and everything in between, has a special gem for dedicated zombie fans to enjoy.
TAGLINE:
- The LHC Zombie Film
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2523692/
IMDb Rating: 3.8/10
Baron’s Rating: 3.5/10
This review was originally published in October 2014 on the now defunct Rogue Cinema website.