UNHUMAN

US, 2022, 90 minutes, Colour.

Brianne Tju, Benjamin Wadsworth, Uriah Shelton, Ali Gallo, Peter Giles, Drew Scheid, Josh Mikell, Lo Graham, CJ LeBlanc, Blake C.Burt, Tony Donno.

Directed by Marcus Dunstan.

Unhuman begins like a typical high school comedy with some edge. A group of teenagers gather for an outing, the opening of the film establishing some of these characters, especially two friends, Ever and Tamra. The teacher checks on everyone, the bus driver is ready, quite a number of other students arrive, especially the local Jock, Danny, and his girlfriend, two students who have been bullied, and a rather large boy.

All seems ordinary enough, banter and slinging off during the trip – and suddenly, blood on the windscreen, panic, attempts to escape the bus, and strange zombielike creatures advancing, taking over the bus driver and transforming him.

Young horror fans, especially those identifying with the characters, will enjoy this variation on zombie themes.

There is a lot of hectic action, pursued by the zombies, gathering together in a hut for protection, working out tactics, the transform driver attacking them, also a transformed fellow student. Alliances are made, many clashes, the large boy intervening and helping them…

Ultimately, there are explanations, especially in the flashback where the bullied boys concoct a whole plan for this scenario, another one with the drug injected into the students to make them bewildered and fearful. The Jock becomes the target of the zombies. The two girls who had begun to fall out with each other are reunited.

The school authorities take over and the boys who concocted the plot are put in prison – later to be approached by the school authorities to create a further scenario!

Parents and teachers may find this story more exasperating but high school students may well identify with the characters and enjoy it, the horrors, the zombies, the peril, the explanations.