Reviews
‘This Is Not A Test’ Unleashes A YA Zombie Apocalypse That Feels Like Detention [BHFF Review]
The melodramatic adaptation of the Courtney Summers YA novel fails to do anything new with a zombie apocalypse, despite a strong, committed performance by Olivia Holt.
“The end of the world is a lonely place.”
Film has been exploring zombie stories for close to a century. Zombie stories consistently find an audience and are one of the more popular topics for horror to explore. At this point, the zombie genre is pretty played out and films need to work extra hard and have a distinct perspective in order to feel worthwhile. Zombie stories don’t always have to reinvent the wheel, but the topic should be able to hold a mirror up to society or prompt some deeper level of change in its characters. This Is Not A Test, based on the young adult novel of the same name by Courtney Summers, has the right ingredients to do something different that can dig a little deeper. Unfortunately, This Is Not A Test becomes a frustrating case of wasted potential where a compelling vantage point for its vulnerable protagonist still isn’t enough to give this undead genre a pulse.
The most interesting thing about This Is Not A Test is that it follows a suicidal, abused protagonist through a zombie apocalypse. It would be so easy for Sloane (Olivia Holt) to just give up, become zombie chow, and put an end to her pain. This zombie apocalypse becomes an unexpected epiphany for Sloane. She’s legitimately shocked when the end of the world helps her realize that she actually wants to live. The whole idea that dying is easy and living is hard is nothing new, but it’s a powerful and appropriate theme for This Is Not A Test to unpack. Sloane, along with the other sullen teens that she’s holed up with at school, are forced to weigh their respective trauma against brain-eating zombies. This compelling angle is gradually swallowed by the film’s stronger YA sensibilities. Everyone has their own melodramatic trigger, which on their own wouldn’t be a big deal. However, grouped together, they collectively feel reductive of standard young adult archetypes.
This Is Not A Test becomes very “Detention of the Dead” once Sloane and a handful of other teen survivors find refuge from the undead in their high school. This story is set in the late ‘90s and adopts a very punk rock aesthetic to match. It’s reminiscent of Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton’s Unhuman, which is the more tonally consistent of the two films. This Is Not A Test’s ‘90s vibes are initially strong, but they wane over time. It doesn’t take long for this to devolve into generic zombie fodder. This Is Not A Test unabashedly embraces a lot of generic genre staples. Curiously, director Adam MacDonald is kind of a pro when it comes to horror archetypes, having helmed three seasons of Slasher and its follow-up, Hell Motel, which were dense in genre tropes. Despite this diverse expertise, MacDonald’s take on zombies leaves a lot to be desired.
There are many moments in This Is Not A Test when it feels like the film is ready to break free from convention and do something different, only to stay in line. The rampant YA energy gives it the feeling of a CW or Netflix pilot, despite its good intentions and the copious blood, guts, and gore. It’s all just too much of a soap opera for the horror to ever connect. Holt does the best work with this material as she processes her grief over losing her sister and channels it into killer instinct. She’s the film’s saving grace and it’s nice to see Holt become a veritable scream queen at this point after Totally Killer and Heart Eyes. Holt and Froy Gutierrez are also both from Cruel Summer and there are more than a few moments when This Is Not A Test could double as some non-canon Halloween special.
The teen melodrama and zombie carnage are often at odds with each other, even though they’re meant to be complementary. There are decent practical gore effects in play, but the zombie attacks are presented in such a frenzied, wild manner that quickly wears thin. It’s an intentional choice that might be an attempt at symbolizing Sloane and company’s frayed mental states, but it just doesn’t work. It’s a perfect example of the film just needing to get out of its own way. That being said, This Is Not A Test absolutely nails the random chaos that kicks off its zombie outbreak. The film’s introduction successfully captures the public’s paralyzing fear and the visual terror of it all. This early chaos is some of This Is Not A Test’s strongest material. Ironically, all the bigger picture apocalypse stuff has more energy than the Lord of the Flies microcosm that plays out in the school.
This Is Not A Test does its best to breathe fresh life into the zombie subgenre by giving it a young adult makeover, but it’s an imbalanced misfire that shambles towards mediocrity. Overthinking certain stylistic elements, while underthinking other narrative hurdles prevent This Is Not A Test from graduating into a classic. This Is Not A Test may not stick the landing, but it bravely stares into the abyss and champions some flawed, inspirational underdogs. There’s still enough to sink one’s teeth into here.
This is Not a Test screened at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival; Independent Film Company & Shudder will release in 2026.
Reviews
‘Her Private Hell’ Review: Nicolas Winding Refn Returns With a Hypnotic, Inscrutable Neon Fever Dream
Nicolas Winding Refn considers his first feature film in ten years, Her Private Hell, a resurrection. At the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, the filmmaker revealed that his return was inspired, in large part, by his own mortality. His need to create art kicked into overdrive after beating death in 2023, when his heart stopped for 25 minutes.
Her Private Hell is pure art, too, bearing the filmmaker’s neon and synth signatures, as well as a deep disinterest in scrutable storytelling. Much like The Neon Demon, Refn’s latest demands you bend to its wavelength: an expressionistic vision more interested in the artistic process than the narrative.
That’s not to say that Her Private Hell lacks plot; this sci-fi horror noir features two central overlapping plots. At the forefront is actress Elle (Sophie Thatcher), who lives in the penthouse suite overlooking a hazy neon metropolis with her father, Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott), and young stepmom Dominique (Havana Rose Liu), who happens to be Elle’s former best friend before marriage got in the way.
To say that Elle has daddy issues would be an understatement, made worse by insecurities, the arrival of a new acting ingenue (Kristine Froseth), and a vicious killer prowling the city: the Leather Man.
The secondary plot follows the enigmatic Private K (Charles Melton), an American soldier in Japan with resolute vengeance on his mind. Whereas Elle’s world exists in a space of glamour and opulence, Private K pummels his way bare-knuckled through the sweaty backstreets ruled by local crime syndicates down below.
Refn, who co-writes with Esti Giordani, manages to corral a variety of seemingly disparate genres and influences into a clinically cold and cryptic whole. The filmmaker infuses his signature style with everything from ’60s sci-fi to Golden Age Hollywood melodrama to Japanese folklore, hung on the framework of a Dario Argento-style Giallo. There’s a prominent psychosexual edge to both Elle and Private K’s separate journeys, one that dials up to zany excess when it comes to the former character.
There’s an overarching sense of mystic mythmaking to Her Private Hell, with elusive seamstresses, played by Shioli Kutsuna and Aoi Yamada, dipping in and out like folkloric, omnipotent kitsune as they seemingly preside over the increasing chaos that entails brutal knife fights, Freudian melodrama, and a supernatural killer that brutally rips his victims apart. All of it told with Refn’s detached, sterile style.
It’s less a conventional movie and more a stream of consciousness, a collection of inspirations and personal thoughts and themes. Nothing is really explained in this nonsensical fairy tale fever dream. Thatcher gives herself fully to the spoiled Elle, whose affluent privilege makes her a bundle of raw, primal emotions that erodes her sense of identity and reality. It makes her the tonal and visual opposite of the elusive Private K., and much credit goes to Refn, Melton, and Thatcher for wringing compelling performances out of such nebulous, vague characters.
As with most of Refn’s work, you’re either on his frequency or not. Her Private Hell is wholly uninterested in explanation or convention. It’s also heavily disjointed and unhurried in its eclectic, sparse amalgamation of genre inspirations. Still, it’s tough not to fall sway to the magnetic allure of its exquisite, pulse-pounding sights and sounds, complete with an incredible score by legendary composer Pino Donaggio.
While it never fully pulls you into its tangled web of artistic musings, there’s a lot to admire in a technically stunning feature this fearless in its incomprehensibility and ambition.
Her Private Hell releases in theaters on July 24.
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