‘What We Become’ (2015)


I know… I did say no more movies for a bit but I’m about thirty pages off finishing ‘Predator: Concrete Jungle’ and I’m also waiting for a chance to get to watch the latest episode of ‘Moon Knight’ so while I’m waiting on these two things to sort themselves out… Lets talk a little bit about ‘What We Become’.

I’m not going to go on too much about how I love zombie movies; we’ve all been here a while now so it’s not like we don’t know. Lets just say that it’s been years since I last watched ‘What We Become’ and I thought I’d give it another go, just to see if I could remind myself why I was so non-plussed about it the last time. So, here we are…

A family of four is quarantined in their home as a mysterious virus spreads into town, transforming their friends and neighbours into zombies. As the military moves in to try and stem the outbreak, they are forced to the extreme in a struggle to stay live…

As cool as zombies are, the real thing about zombie movies is watching our human protagonists make all the mistakes that will ultimately doom them. The underlying message is that no matter how bad things get, people just cannot work together and that’s why you see them at the end of the movie, staggering around with the rest of the undead. The thing is though, these chains of events still have to be believable otherwise it just doesn’t work, humans have to make human mistakes otherwise… what’s the point?

And that’s the problem with ‘What We Become’, it’s built upon mistakes that don’t quite gel. Well, not for me anyway. I can buy the military being heavy handed with the civilians although giving the families a little more information could have made all the different. I can even buy the dumb teenager making a really big mistake and releasing the zombies. What I don’t buy though is a military force that’s as heavy handed as this one yet neglects to put even one guard on the ‘zombie containers’. Just one would have done it. I get that certain events have to play out, in any zombie movie, yet backing them up like this isn’t a good move at all.

It’s a shame because the rest of the movie plays out quite well; it’s not doing anything new at all but what it does do isn’t done badly. Questions around survival are asked in a reasonably tense manner and unlike some other reviews I’ve seen, I like the fact that the people who adapt the quickest are the ones who survive, even if it’s only for a little while longer.

‘What We Become’ isn’t a bad way to spend just under an hour and a half but it’s built on really shaky foundations and I couldn’t get away from that so I can’t see it making an appearance on my ‘Favourite Zombie Movies’ list. And yes, I do have one… 😉

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