Antisocial

Though it does improve slightly in its final half hour, Antisocial is, for the majority of its running time, an entirely underwhelming horror effort that’s rife with incompetent, amateurish elements – which is too bad, certainly, given the promise of the movie’s (admittedly familiar) setup. The narrative follows five university students as they’re forced to fend for their lives after an unknown epidemic strikes, with the movie, as expected, detailing the paranoia and suspicion that inevitably ensues among the squabbling quintet. There is, at the outset, very little contained within Antisocial that’s able to successfully (or even partially) hold the viewer’s interest, as the movie has been suffused with elements of a decidedly less-than-skillfull nature – with virtually everything here, from the performances to the dialogue to the visuals, coated in a sheen of ineptness that proves impossible to overlook. (In a shot that’s completely emblematic of filmmaker Cody Calahan’s slapdash sensibilities, a central character picks up her phone to answer a text and clearly holds it upside down.) The arms-length atmosphere is perpetuated by a repetitive midsection that’s devoted primarily to bickering and squabbling among the one-dimensional protagonists, and it is, as a result, awfully difficult to work up any real interest in or sympathy for the characters’ increasingly perilous exploits. It’s just as clear, however, that Antisocial picks up considerably once it passes a certain point, as Callahan offers up a final stretch that’s jam-packed with precisely the sort of over-the-top gore that’s otherwise absent from the proceedings – which ultimately does confirm the movie’s place as a decent short film trapped within the confines of a mostly unwatchable feature.

*1/2 out of ****