Mixed bag

This had great potential, and was entertaining enough for its short runtime, but it could have been so much more with better writing.

Remember how Die Hard kept escalating even though it was in one location, and details introduced at the start (eg. the Rolex) resurface in meaningful ways at the end? That’s what this needed. Some structure, not just a great setup and then arbitrary and random deaths.

It could have delved deeper into the factions that form based on personality types, religion, values and survival abilities, instead it was basically evil strong white men hunting down minorities/women/elderly and other ‘vulnerables’ - I think we’ve had enough of this lazy racist, sexist portrayal thanks Hollywood.

When most of the cast are randomly nuked half way through it was such a waste of valuable character exploration in favour of a cheap shock.

Why does the hero’s girlfriend fervently try to convince him that his very plausible conspiracy theory about the origins of the experiment are false?

Also, the people conducting the survival ‘experiment’ aren’t very smart - they kill off most of their subjects at random. Dumb.

Greg McClean is a very good horror director and he does the best he can with the script, making things feel real, good performances, heavy tension, disturbing and graphic slaughter, but I almost wish he’d taken the screenplay and rewritten it himself into something smarter.

Recommended with reservations.