Phase 7 (2010)

The plot: A goofy slacker and his pregnant wife attempt to survive a pandemic after their apartment complex is quarantined.Phase 7 doesn't bother being coy about its influences. It's basically the plot of Rec, music from John Carpenter's minimalist synth scores, and style of Shaun of the Dead. By itself, that sounds enjoyable enough, if you're into high concept, low budget B movies. However, it's really well done. I'm a bit surprised that the rating is so low, though I can understand why some people might dismiss it as derivative.Phase 7 isn't overly concerned with traditional horror movie tropes, though it does toy with them. Instead, it focuses on social satire and black comedy. There are very few infected people, but, unlike movies such as Rec and 28 Days Later, the effects tend to be a bit more subtle. Similar to The Signal, people tend to become more extreme in their behavior, though you're often left wondering if people are infected or your average crazy neighbor. In the end, I think the effect is the same, and this is one of the themes of the movie. There's a bit of gore and violence, but it's sparingly used. If you're looking for a vicious bloodbath, you're sure to be disappointed. Most of the scenes are played for humor, rather than tension or horror.I liked the characters quite a lot. Most of them were flawed in some major way, but they were all fairly likable despite it. The ways that they react to each other and the situations were quite often rather amusing, even if it did play out a bit predictably at times. If you like Shaun of the Dead, Re-Animator, Army of Darkness, and other comedy/horror movies, you'll probably enjoy Phase 7. If you're looking for something original or gory, maybe you should try a different movie, however.

20 minutes in, bad enough. Smart one minute and stupid the next describes the pregnant girlfriend...unbearable. Maybe if I was fluent in Espanol I would rate this higher, but despite language it still has the same idiotic character flaws of pieces of crap like Halloween. "OMG, why would I think rationally in a situation such as this?" Because your in a B-flick that, if I had to guess, got decent ratings because it's not in English. A kind of "Well, they don't know that the 'I'm stupid and your stupid but somehow we will live' plot is stupid." I recommend the first 20 minutes and ask...are you irritated yet? But, hey, I can't truly bitch because I couldn't make it that long. So, allow me to offer up this suggestion, If you enjoy READING clichéd and just plain shitty stories then this movie may be for you. I found that having to read the Spanish didn't distract me one bit from the stupidity of the plot.

The production of this movie was great. For the exception of one very unrealistic firefight scene, if you watch the movie you should know the one i'm talking about without me spoiling it. Now the effects, and actors were great, but it's time for the bad. The writing in this movie was just the worst of the works. The worst thing is that throughout the whole movie the wife is acting like a total b!tch towards her husband as if he's coming in late from bars every night. I don't exactly know if it was written for her to act this way, or if it was the actor herself that made it seem this way. Either way it bothered me throughout the entire movie. The second bad writing part is of the husband. With just half the sh!t he sees in the movie a real person would have spoken the truth to the women they were married to, but not this guy he doesn't share anything with her until he has to. Again even after he does share her attitude still seems that of a wife whose husband keeps coming in late at night from bars. So the whole thing about this is that the husband and wife seem not to care about the epidemic even after people start dieing. Which is just the worst writing for a family of two about to have a child. Everyone knows that any right minded pregnant women would be taking every precaution to keep her child safe, but in this movie the family seemed to be as worried about getting the virus as dead people are of getting fat. It makes as much sense as the sentence I wrote just before this one. 5/10 stars and it only did that good because the production was actually well done.

I just came out of the cinema, had dinner with a girl, and we started talking about Fase 7, we are both Argentinian, she didn't like it, i thought it was very good. Daniel Hendler is a very good actor, who I've seen in other Argentinian movies, he acts really well and is always funny, even without trying. At some point it resembles the movie QUARANTINE, but with a totally different approach, im not saying it is a masterpiece, but you really won't be disappointed. Yayo surprised me in a very good way, here we are used to see him perform in some funny sketches, in Fase 7 he is hilarious but you really can not tell he is an amateur in the movies. Anyway, if you are guy, you will probably be at the edge of you seat waiting to see what happens next, or the next part where you will laugh, if you are girl, please don't try to overthink it, don't relate it to the society or anything like that, just seat back and enjoooooy.