It’s easy to imagine that upon conception Alone was an intelligent, thoughtful horror-thriller. Johnny Martin’s film would offer a fresh perspective, a contrast to the abundance of regulation zombie fare cluttering up the streaming services. Whether during the development process or through production that movie became lost, hidden behind clichéd melodrama, leaving only remnants of what could have been.
Tyler Posey plays Aidan, a young man who wakes one morning to discover a zombie apocalypse has broken out and he is forced to barricade himself inside his apartment. What then follows is forty minutes of self-pitying punctuated by moments of generic zombie bashing as Aidan slowly unravels toward a moment of real darkness. Then rather abruptly, there is a tonal shift and the story heads off in a different direction entirely.
If you can’t see where the plot is going, we envy you, but you clearly haven’t watched enough genre horror. This is a crowded area and to deliver something new and fresh is an increasingly difficult challenge. The performances are fine – there’s a cameo from Donald Sutherland whose character arc is even more transparent than Aidan’s – and the direction is suitably naturalistic and documentary-like. But there is no meat on these zombie bones, no depth to the plot or plight and little genuine threat from the afflicted populous. What remains instead is a disappointingly mediocre movie that will struggle to hold your attention for its duration and one you may well have forgotten all about soon after.
