Antisocial (2013) - Lisa's Review

NOTE: In honour of Halloween, We're taking a break from the TimeOut 100 Greatest Best Horror Movies.

This month, reviewers have been given a free choice of any horror movie they haven't yet seen.

This weeks movie is one I hadn't seen as it has been sitting on my shelves for a while sent over from Australia by a friend of the hubbys. A need for a multi-region player meant it has sat there for a few weeks. So is it any good?

Antisocial comes to us from little known director Cody Calahan.  It follows a group of friends who gather together in one of their homes to celebrate New Year.  The movie predominantly follows Sam, who has been dealing with a less than enthusiastic boyfriend.  She seems very subdued and almost aloof as we start the movie, but as it goes on we realise why she seems preoccupied.  We publicly see her boyfriend announce his new status of singledom on a social media site, here called Redroom, but clearly a parody of Facebook.

*** Mild Spoilers ***

Whilst at the party, the friends discover that a virus of some kind is overtaking the world outside and causing anyone who catches it to become violent.  Sounds like 100 movies we've seen before.  Yea, I suppose the general concept is the same, I still enjoyed watching this movie though.

We concentrate heavilly on Redbook and social media throughout the movie.  I kind of wondered if there were some kind of inference of Social Media being evil or brain addling?  Who knows?  Maybe that was just in my head.

We concentrate on the friends relationships and suspicions of each other.  As they are holed up inside the house to avoid the virus and to keep anyone out who is infected, they must trust one another.  Inevitably the virus finds its way inside the house and from an earlier online example of what happens to even innocent teenage girls when they become infected, everyone becomes very frightened, not only of becoming infected, but also being trapped inside a house with anyone who is.

I don't want to say any more, but there were some pretty cool special effects in this movie, but they were inexplicably left until near to the end of the movie.  The last half hour of the movie is without doubt the best part.   I would say however I did enjoy it and would recommend it.   It's not a movie that's going to win any awards, but it did fit quite well to a night where I didn't want my brain being taxed too much.