Reviewed by thepunktheory on
I liked that the movie really committed to the "don't look or you'll die" theme. The only glimpses we get of the outside world are through blindfolds which is a nice change from all those horror movies that assault you with tons of special effects and monsters.
There were, however, several things that annoyed me about the film. For example, they just had to throw a completely unnecessary love story in there that made me roll my eyes. Furthermore, the movie feels much too long considering the amount of stuff that is going on - which is not much. We are left with many unanswered questions and I could have lived with that had the ending not been extremely unconvincing.
The movie started off strong, got mediocre in the middle and went completely down the drain at the end.
Now to the book. Thank goodness, this was much better than the adaptation. First of all, no love story! Josh Malerman gets bonus points for that. Moreover, things make more sense in the novel and I am inclined to believe Malorie's journey and how the story ends. In the movie, this felt just too far-fetched. They had also added a couple of scenes that strained the boundaries of logic and brightened up the ending a bit.
The novel does a much better job of making you feel the horror and the apocalypse thing that is going on. Many scenes in the film felt like the regular blueprint of every zombie apocalypse flick but in the book, there are fewer clichés. Although Malerman doesn't answer all the questions you might have, the book does give you a better idea and I felt more closure than from the movie.
I do, however, have one big question: WHY did they have to change the name of almost every character for the movie? I was a bit confused at first and then just irritated as to why that was necessary. Somebody, please enlighten me.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 28 March, 2020: Finished reading
- 28 March, 2020: Reviewed