'Inmate Zero' (2019)



If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll know that I really enjoy watching the occasional rubbish movie. Ok, it's not an 'occasional thing', I like watching them all the time, it's pretty much the whole reason why I watch movies to be honest. There is simply nothing as enjoyable as watching a movie that knows its limitations and either struggles gamely on or says 'the hell with it' and sends itself up. What I don't like though are movies that think that they are all that when they're really not and that's what I found myself watching yesterday. I didn't need that so it was time to hit the trail again and find something rubbish that was actually enjoyable.
'Inmate Zero' looked like it could be the very movie that I was after, based on the garbled blurb on the back of the DVD case...

When a medical experiment on prisoners goes horribly wrong, a remote island becomes a terrifying, disease-riddled maze for the desperate survivors.

When a blurb is barely a sentence long, that always piques my interest as it invariably means there's going to be very little in the way of story here. A movie can go two ways here, either of which will be very entertaining (for different reasons). I'm not ashamed to say that I was totally blindsided by 'Inmate Zero'; there is no story as such but the film uses this to its advantage. The lack of explanation (other than 'dodgy medical experiments' that we're never told about or see) adds real tension to the little story that we do have, namely the attempt to escape the prison without being infected or killed by the infected. We've got no idea what's really going on and neither do the survivors, all any of us know is that they need to get the hell out. Everything is stripped right back to the basics and 'Inmate Zero' positively purrs along as a result. It's really easy to watch as a result, plenty of action punctuated by jump scares and a little gore ('Inmate Zero' is rated 15 so not much in the way of gore, it's mostly hinted at rather than actually seen).

The lack of story also gives us a little more time to spend with the survivors and find out what makes them tick. I liked the way this was done actually, little info-dumps interspersed throughout the early parts of the movie rather than the 'we're safe for a few moments, lets swap life stories' scenario that I was expecting. Some of the characters are complete arseholes but the 'imminent death' signposting in these instants just makes for another good reason to keep watching.
Jess Chanliau's Stone made for a very compelling lead with an 'innocent or guilty?' thing going on as well being thrown back on her own resources in a situation that no-one could have seen coming. Stone may be ex-army but she's never had to deal with psychotic infected cannibals and Chanliau does a great job of showing us what this does to Stone.

'Inmate Zero' won't win any awards but was a surprisingly enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half. It was far too hot to get any kind of decent sleep last night so I was really grateful for a film that made good use of limited resources to come up with what it did.

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