Friday, March 28, 2014

Toxin Movie Review



More indie madness from Canada, Toxin skirts the Zombie/poisoned human line with a ultra low budget yarn about a secluded Island, that is "above top secret" and home to a poison to turn people against each other.
The film opens frantically as soldiers are being pursued on the island by "infected" people of a mythical toxin wrapped up in what looks like bricks that cocaine would be wrapped up in. In a style like the film Predator,  the humans are displayed from the point of the infected through a fish eye type of lens, as they pursue the uninfected. Regarding the toxin. It seems to create hieghtened combat skills, aggression, strength, but is never fully explained. The people move, and pounce almost catlike on their prey.

After the opening sequence, a group of adventure seeking tourists are shown boarding a plane and at the last minute a mysterious man appears, he commandeers the plan and turns out he wants to go to the island to find out the truth and recover the toxin and destroy it.

Perhaps due to the uninteresting story line, lack of explanation to how the poison was developed, and lackluster directing in Toxin, the acting, for the most part is relatively uninspiring and dull. Veteran stuntman Douglas Chapman plays LT John Paxton. He does a decent job of portraying the military bad-ass. Helix actress  (Carla Frye) plays the tough and rugged adventure tour leader, she tries to do what she can with the tepid source material. Obviously these two tried to make the 72 minute, yes, I said one hour and twelve minute film work. Another nod goes to actress  as Theresa, she is one of the first to be infected and gets crazy, girls gone wild zombie style!

As Toxin progresses, more action ensues, mainly because the older corrupt military commander wants to incinerate the island when he finds out that LT Paxton is on it. As the passengers are infected they turn on each other etc.. More military bad guys are sent to the island to root out and kill the survivors.

There has been far more dull films than this, but the story coupled with the cop-out way the infected are barely shown after they are turned, Toxin never turns into much excitement. It almost felt like a\ short film that was stretched just to make a feature. The two redeeming quality are the lush landscape where it was filmed full of beautiful ferns and the action toward the end, at least it was not boring. The ending is open to a possible sequel. 

Overall I give the film a 4 out of 10, Toxin is worth a Netflix subscription rent or it comes on cable for free, it is barely longer than a one hour TV show, and you can watch a cute blonde girl turn into a maniacal enraged animal.

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