What We Become, (2015)

     Also known as ‘Sorgenfri’ in its original Danish, What We Become sees a small Danish suburb beginning to develop some viral episodes. The government swiftly cuts of the community in an effort to contain the outbreak before most of the citizens even know there is a problem. One family deals with the frustrations of quarantine while completely dependent on authorities for food, water, and power, but no answers. Curiosity gives way to rash decisions and tragedy, as tragedy will, ensues.

     If no other zombie movie existed, ‘What We Become’ would serve as a complete overview of the genre. By that, I mean that SO MUCH TIME is dedicated to establishing premise, setting, and characters, and large portions of the film are used up to show what so many other zombie movies have already done, and done sooner, faster, better and with equal purpose to aiding the story. Heck! The first 45 minutes doesn’t even see any of the undead.

That is my biggest problem with the movie. Its pacing. It reads as a slow, almost real-time chronicling of events from the everyday to a little unusual behavior. Then some reports of illness, then containment and quarantine and finally, FINALLY, one of the main characters says, “I think something is amiss!” Or something to that effect. And decides to act on this epiphany.

     Now, on the positive side of the coin, the acting is quite good. The actors are quite convincing in their mundane/bewildered/frustrated/frightened/desperate states and assist the respective moods being played out.

     The zombies, however, were great. The were my favorite part, (“Oh, surprise, surprise!”) of the movie. It is a shame that they didn’t see more screen-time. The undead, that we apparently become, featured some really decent make-up and special effects. They also moved convincingly - they did not run or show any fine motor coordination, just the slow and shambolic walking corpses I refer to as “Romeros,” in the my Zombie Classification Chart. I mean, sure they did snarl. But with the exception of this animalistic trait, the undead scored high for this movie.

     That scoring comes, of course, from that objective scoring tool known as The Zombie Movie Rubric. And it was from there that What We Become received a surprise high 2.5 out of a possible 4 points. The zombies, special effects and acting countering the ‘deadly crawl’ pacing’s basement score.

So, a 2.5 DOES entitle this movie to a recommendation! But I would do so with one serious caveat: This movie moves SLOWLY! One must be in the right state for it. If you are just remotely tired, you will probably fall asleep. If you are overly caffeinated and/or hyper, you will lose interest. Somewhere in between those is the sweet spot, find that and you’ll enjoy it.

     As usual, here is a YouTube Trailer to pique one’s interest: WHAT WE BECOME, (2015) 

Oh, P.S., this movie is in Danish with English Subtitles. Just felt I should mention that!