REVIEW: ANTISOCIAL

I didn't need a movie to tell me that people obsessed with social networking websites are actually slobbering brainless psychopaths, but, thanks anyway. (Just kidding!)

(Not really.)

A spiritual sequel (of sorts) to films like The Signal, Pontypool, and even George Romero's The Crazies, Antisocial is the next step in realizing a wide-scale outbreak of mass hysteria and madness, this time seemingly perpetuated by the world's dependence on social networking sites. 

It's New Year's Eve, and college student Sam (Michelle Mylett) joins a group of friends to do what college kids do best: drink too much and act like buffoons. But random news reports of murder-suicides occurring on college campuses across the country threaten to put a damper on the New Year...that is until it begins occurring at their own. One by one their friends begin to exhibit the signs of being infected: bleeding from the nose and ears, incoherence, and finally, bouts of brutal violence thrust upon the self or others. 

With the windows and doors boarded, and doing their best to remain calm, the friends do whatever they must to survive.

We've seen Antisocial so many times before I have to wonder why filmmaker Cody Calahan bothered. Is it to let us know we've become so overdependent on Youtube and Twitter and the slowly dying Facebook that we're turning into mindless monsters? If so, we know. Still, Calahan has delivered a competent film that manages to pack a few layers of freshness into an overused dish. The aforementioned Romero himself tried this a few years back with Diary of the Dead, only this time using social networking as a positive - a means to get the real truth surrounding the zombie outbreak as opposed to relying on the highly censored and manipulated media - but Antisocial remains the superior film. 

While Antisocial is obviously a low budget affair, thankfully that's only prevalent when it comes to the nature of the story and location, not the look or feel. And our young cast are all up to the task, which is another miraculous feat, because so many in films of this ilk are not. The pretty Michelle Mylett makes for a sympathetic lead, though she shares her most of her screen time with the ensemble cast.

Great musical score, too.

Antisocial asks the question: If we were slowly going insane, would we turn to social networking sites to share this insanity? Would we broadcast our newfound madness to our hundreds of fake friends and strange followers just as we do when uploading our dinners to Instagram or offering status updates saying "had the worst day and i DON'T want to talk about it!!!"?

Probably.

And that's when Antisocial is at its most horrifying. Heavy-handed and at times completely unsubtle, it still manages to be energetic and effective. Though it offers up many things you've already seen, it gives you a few you haven't. (Don't miss the bit with the Christmas lights.)