I gravitated toward EXTINCTION not because I'm a huge zombie fan but because I have a warm spot for snowbound horror. I caught the icy trailer on a random DVD and I couldn't understand why I had never heard of it before and then fortuitously, a couple weeks later, it popped up at a yard sale because I'm the luckiest person in the world. Now EXTINCTION is on CRACKLE and I am strongly urging you to check it out. It's one of my favorite finds of the last ten years and it's the type of movie I'll watch again and again. If I had to make a list of underrated horror films, I think I'd put it smack on the top. I want this movie to be my pet so I can pat it on the head and it can sit in front of my fireplace. Do you know how many zombie movies I don't care about? I'd say about 97%. This one is particularly unique and it has interesting characters and the atmosphere is through the roof. You have to see the shot of an abandoned, snow-covered movie theater with a marque that reads "AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS." It's so darn beautiful…
The less you know the better so I'll just throw a couple selling points at you and hope it will be enough. The bulk of this movie takes place about ten years after a zombie-type outbreak wipes out most of civilization. The tale follows two adult survivors (MATTHEW FOX, JEFFREY DONOVAN– both excellent), a little girl (QUINN McCOLGAN) and a faithful doggie. These folks are holed up in a couple of adjacent houses in the middle of nowhere covered in ice and hoping never to see a zombie again (in truth, the creatures are never called such and are referred to as simply "monsters"). The two men have had a falling out but they both feel responsible for the little girl and eventually they have to reconcile in order to persevere. Slowly we learn the details of the slight that divided them and it becomes a genuinely compelling character driven drama. Of course the monsters return, as they always do, and there are some real nail-biting action sequences as this likable group fights to survive. In some ways, it's more faithful to the homebound isolated terrors of RICHARD MATHESON's I AM LEGEND than previous official adaptions. Plus, I kinda just want to live in this movie were modern culture is dead, everything is covered in snow and I'm in a boarded up house filled with books eating beans out of a can.
Watch EXTINCTION right HERE for free thanks to the folks at CRACKLE.
Trailer: