Coventry Review of Infested

Infested (2002)

Da-Da-Da retarded! Da-Da-Da imbecile! Da-Da-Da totally messed up!

[2/10 · 24 January 2006]

Every once and a while, usually during a full moon, you stumble upon a B-movie SO stupid that you actually have severe difficulties believing your own eyes! "Infested", written and directed by Josh Olsen, is somewhat the prototype of everything that is wrong in horror and yet, ironically enough, it also is enormously entertaining just BECAUSE it's so stupid! "Infested" is a very tasteless creature-feature in which genetically altered houseflies turn a bunch of thirty-something losers into breeding zombies. This brief story description already sounds idiotic, but the actual elaboration of the film is even ten times worse! The introduction of the characters is inspired by Lawrence Kasdan's semi-masterpiece "The Big Chill", as they're reunited for the first time in over ten years at the funeral of one of their old friends. Unfortunately for them, there's also a plague of laughable CGI houseflies attacking them and taking possession their entire bodies. Instead of running away as far as they can (and, yes, there's plenty opportunity to do so), the survivors actually prefer to stick around so that they can say their stupid lines, listen to their awful music and get their mouths stuffed with aggressive flies! The amount of ridiculous sequences featuring in "Infested" is too long to list, so here's just a brief rundown of the film's best "worst" moments. Did you know that playing the awful "Da-Da-Da" song could distract people who're zombified by flies? Or that computer-engineered flies explode impressively when exposed to unnatural light? "Infested" also teaches us that it's okay to swallow tons of ecstasy pills in order to stay calm and that it's perfectly alright to try and hit on a girl at her fiancée's funeral! Heck, it's even okay to sing and dance moments after the burial of your old buddy. The cast is an assembly of washed up stars and one-hit-wonders, such as a former Power Ranger (the Pink one) and the original hero of the 80's hit "Gremlins". There's a fun cameo for veteran actor Mark Margolis, however, as the priest who gives one of the most hilarious funeral speeches in history. The truckload of blood, gore and visual effects isn't scary at all and it's even too stupid to count as tongue-in-cheek. Watching "Infested" will save you the costs of buying beer, though, as you'll get the impression of being drunk already. See it just once in order to believe it's real…and then burn all DVD-copies!