Saturday 26 August 2017

Movie Review: The Control Group (2014)

Let's get a few things out of the way...

*cringe*
*groan*
*eyeroll*

Okay. I think we can move on to the rest of the review for The Control Group (2014) now.


The Control Group starts when a group of friends (we'll use the term loosely) wake up in an old asylum after a party. With no idea of where they are or how they got there, they have to put aside their differences as they go in search of answers. As you might expect, that does not go well.

Turns out, the friends have become part of a secret government test led by Brad Dourif's Dr. Broward. There's a crazy, dead criminal locked in a machine bringing people back as zombies when they die and- You know what? It doesn't get any better than that.


The worst part of The Control Group is the acting. With the exception of the always-brilliant Brad Dourif, the acting is just downright terrible. Most of the characters are over-acted, while one or two are so wooden Geppetto nearly made puppets out of them.

You can blame it entirely on the actors, though. Even the best actor can't do much with a lousy script. The dialogue is unoriginal and unnatural, which makes The Control Group painful to watch.

The special effects are almost as bad, with glowing yellow eyes and blue bolts of electricity straight out of the Eighties. I did like the use of the plague doctor masks, though. Those things always creep me out.

There are issues of friendship, trust, and suicide hidden in The Control Group but they're so deep under the bad acting that it's not worth looking for them. Give this one a miss.

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