(Streamed via MovieSphere Free)
Well, when you’re in the midst of a pandemic and you decide to devote an entire month to watching horror movies, it’s only a matter of time before you wind up watching one about a pandemic. From that standpoint, it’s interesting to see what the filmmakers (in this case Paranormal Activity 2 and 3’s Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman) accurately predicted. Viral contains scenes where families watch Presidential addresses for more information on the virus, towns being placed under quarantine, people wearing masks, and stupid teens defying curfew orders to go to a party, causing the virus to spread even further. I’d say they hit the hammer on the nail in that respect. As a horror movie though, it just never really comes together.
The virus, known as “Worm Flu”, infects its victims with a parasitic worm that controls their actions and forces them to infect others. Sisters Emma (Sofia Black-D’Elia) and Stacey (Analeigh Tipton) are forced to stay in their home when the viral outbreak ravages their town. It’s only a matter of time before Stacey gets infected and Emma makes a desperate attempt to save her life.
It’s here where Joost and Schulman deliver the film’s lone nasty set piece, but it’s a good one. Emma knocks Stacey out and performs an emergency worm-ectomy on her diseased sister. Imagine an episode of Dr. Pimple Popper, but with giant worms, and that might give you a clue as to what to expect.
Other than that fun sequence, the film never really gets into gear. It feels like it doesn’t know whether to be a viral outbreak movie or a straight up zombie flick. It ultimately tries to split the difference, which leads to some uneven results.
The last ten minutes feels tacked on, almost as if it was a reshoot meant to up the horror quotient. If the movie ended with the emergency surgery scene, it might’ve skated by with ** ½. However, it tries to cram in both an additional zombified citizen attack AND a needless nightmare sequence, both of which are extremely lackluster. Still, it’s better than either of the directors’ Paranormal Activity flicks, although that’s not saying much.
It helps that the two stars deliver solid performances. Black-D’Elia (who was fun to watch on the short-lived TV show, The Mick) does a fine job as the goodie two-shoes sister. Tipton is equally good as her wild child sibling, but unfortunately, many of her scenes are opposite her boyfriend, played by rapper Machine Gun Kelly, whose performance is painfully embarrassing. He should stick to spitting rhymes because he’s not too convincing at spitting blood.
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