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Cast: Dylan Penn, Ronen Rubinstein, Lydia Hearst, Jon Abrahams, Honor Titus, Genevieve Hudson-Price
Fed up with her parents’ bickering, poor-little-rich-girl Maya (Dylan Penn) moves in with her boyfriend, who is squatting in an old, condemned building on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. With neighbors that are meth heads, junkies and degenerates, this depraved hell hole is even more toxic than it appears: After a virus born from their combined noxious waste and garbage infects the building’s residents, one by one, they succumb to a terrifying pathogen that turns them into bloodthirsty, rampaging killers and transforms their building into a savage slaughterhouse.
As the film opens Maya is on the phone with her boyfriend crying, you can hear her parents in the background arguing which is a frequent thing. He tells her to come live with him in Manhattan which she does but she is a bit shocked that her boyfriend and his two friends are squatting at an old, condemned apartment building. Maya is a little nervous at first but when she realizes it is her only option she goes in. Once they get to their floor and into their apartment she begins to calm down a bit. What she doesn't know at first is they are not alone in the building, there are other squatters as well like meth heads, junkies and just plain weirdos.
The film wastes no time getting started as it begins to introduce us to all the people in the building and then after that it again shows the same people doing some very nasty things and spilling their waste either on the floor or down the drain and it all runs down to the basement underneath the building and it festers there turning into a pathogen which in turn begins to infect the residents making them out of their mind killers.
The film is sort of slow moving at first, it spends a good part of its run time introducing us to the squatters and the vile and nasty things they do. It isn't until a little over halfway through the film that things begin to pick up. I want to be honest here, I wasn't too impressed with the film early on but I will admit it does get better once the killing begins. The film is loaded with nasty stuff like vomit and other gooey things that are sure to make some people's stomach a little weak. Once the killings start we get even more gooey, gorey goodness. And we also get some very cool kills as well as some dark humor, some of which I thought was very funny in a disturbing kind of way.
I am pretty confident the film makers intended the film to be an uneasy watch full of nasty infected people spewing stuff and doing just about any type of disgusting act you can think of. I thought the first half or so of the film was kind of boring but I did enjoy the second half much more, the killing, gore and dark humor were all quite enjoyable.
Acting wise was hit and miss, some of the acting was good while some was not so good and none of the characters were really developed enough to care about them but some how that never really mattered to me, maybe I just wanted to see them all killed. This is Director, Eli Morgan Gesner first film as a writer and his second as a director. I like some of the stuff he did directing wise but the script could have used a bit of work. But hey, it’s a horror film and a pretty gorey and gross one at that so if you like this kind of pathogen film then I recommend checking it out. I enjoyed it enough to recommend it to horror fans, especially those that are into Indie horror. "Condemned" will be on VOD and in Theaters November 13th in case you are interested in checking it out. I probably liked the film more than I should have but the over the top violence and gore combined with the dark humor had me hooked during the second half of the film. P.S. make sure you stick around after the credits for a bonus scene.
Released by RLJ Entertainment
*** Out Of *****