Infestation is a horror/action movie from writer/director Kevin Rankin (who wrote such gems as Reindeer Games).  It’s about a group of survivors who awake after something happens and giant bugs take over the world.  The main character is a slacker played by Chris Marquette, who has been in a ton of stuff but you might know as Adam from “Joan of Arcadia”.  His love interest is played by Brooke Nevin, who IMDb tells me has been in a ton of tv shows but I didn’t recognize her.  The band of survivors decide to head off away from a swarm of the insects and in the process visit some family along the way.

The movie starts kinda slow.  I mean you’re thrown into the titular infestation rather quickly but the few minutes before that are pretty painful.  Even after that until Nevin’s character of Sara is introduced things still drag a bit. However instead of going a crappy B-movie route with this, the movie instead feels and is shot like a zombie movie.  It’s sort of a zombie/alien hybrid in it’s themes and overall feel.  There’s some not good stuff like the group of survivors that just feels typical, and of course the journey they must take, which is all cliche stuff.  Also Marquette’s character comes off as obnoxious instead of charming for a good portion of the movie.  But if you can move past it this isn’t entirely bad.

This kept popping up when I google image searched Brooke Nevin.

For one Brooke Nevin puts in a really strong performance and does a good job with what I call being girlfriend material.  That’s when the audience needs to fall for the lead’s love interest as much as he does in order to really buy into anything his love of her makes him do.  She pulls off the part really well, and also her character seemed just a little more well rounded than some of the others.  Also a really wonderful performance by Ray Wise as Marquette’s ex-military father.  Is Ray Wise actually bad in anything though?  Dude is just awesome.

The thing I really wasn’t expecting was the effects.  For a low budget movie like this you’d expect horrible effects but by using a combination of CGI and practical effects the bugs are incredibly well done.  I never once saw a scene where I was groaning at some cheap CGI hack job, which is kind of what I was expecting.

It’s pretty obvious that the people behind this were actually trying, and that really can only make a movie better.  Another positive thing is the depth of the story, or rather how far it goes.  The movie covers a lot of ground in a slim running time and only dragged a little bit towards the middle, other than the previously mentioned beginning.  A lot of things happen.  I could have done without the very end though.  It was just unnecessary.

I’d recommend this as something to watch if there’s nothing else on or if you really are into low budget horror/action movies.  To be honest though this is more action than horror and there isn’t any real gore to speak of.

It is available at Amazon on both dvd
and Video On Demand