Movie Review: What We Become (2015)

What We Become (2015) written and directed by Bo Mikkelsen

A family's extremely typical life (the teenage son is sulky and troublesome, the 10-year old daughter is focused on her bunny) becomes a lot more difficult when a virus breaks out in their Danish suburb. It doesn't spread too quickly and the government establishes a quarantine almost immediately, so the family is stuck in their house for a month while the local CDC tries to find a cure. Things slowly fall apart as the son sneaks out to check on the new girl across the street and on the situation in general. The government starts to lose control and neighbors come to seek shelter at their home, causing more tension and drama, especially since the new girl's mom has a scratch on her leg.

While the movie breaks no new ground (really, nothing that happens is surprising or original, other than the slowness of the build up and the quarantine including gigantic plastic wrap covering the houses), it is solidly engrossing. The gore is left mostly to the end when the situation gets out of control. The movie emulates the pessimistic world view of most zombie films, i.e. that we are doomed (hence the title of the movie). Even with these flaws, the characters are well-written and acted so that viewers care for them and do feel bad when the inevitable zombie apocalypse gets apocalyptic.

Recommended, but mostly for zombie movie fans. I guess if you haven't seen a lot of zombie movies, it might look original to you.