For the final week of February, I was left with a movie I had never heard of again, Outbreak (2024). As far as I can tell, this movie was a “made for streaming” one that didn’t hit theaters, and there are lots of these nowadays. And not many of them are good or worth the time it takes to get settled in to watch them at home, especially when you have access to so much content at the touch of a button. However, I will say, this movie surpassed my expectations by a mile. As I’ve mentioned in my previous reviews, especially with Arbitrage (2012) last week, I would really like to know the metrics of the users who go on sites like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes and actually post reviews. Outbreak (2024) has a 4.4 on IMDB, a score that is a whole TWO points lower than Arbitrage, or even Super Troopers 2 (2018), both of which were movies I vehemently disliked.

Outbreak is a movie about a father, Neil (Billy Burke), who has lost his only son, Ben (Kylr Coffman), and his struggling marriage with his wife, Abby (Alyshia Ochse). The movie begins after their son has gone missing. Neil is a park ranger in a small desert town in the southwest US. The movie opens with him and his crew on a job dealing with a potentially rabid dog. The set up is interesting, as his coworker is bit by the dog, and Neil has a bit of a mental/emotional struggle with shooting it to save his coworker as an eagle flies overhead. I actually really liked the eagle symbology in this movie, the bird keeps coming back and circling overhead at pivotal points throughout.

After this incident at work, Neil is given bereavement leave from his job, and comes home to find his wife drinking at home. They are moving out of the house they lived in with their son, as it’s become too much since he’s gone missing. This is where the movie starts to pick up, Neil goes on a hike and sees a woman drowning at the lake nearby. When he pulls her out of the water, she attacks him and we see our first zombie. Neil goes back home to his wife Abby and gathers some stuff and they hop in the truck to try and find Gibson (Taylor Handley) who is a coworker of his.

The middle of this movie is an action-thriller from the viewpoint of Neil. We see him gathering supplies, driving around trying to make radio contact with anyone he can, all the while being haunted by his son’s disappearance. I thought that the crossover of a deeply depressing family drama with a zombie-horror-thriller was done well for this. As I mentioned already, the symbol of the eagle flying above and screeching is used at pivotal points throughout the film, as well as Neil “hearing” his son call out to him. When we encounter the first zombie at the lakeside, Neil is contemplating suicide, and the thing that pulls him back to ‘reality’ and causes him to notice the drowning woman is the voice of his son on the wind.

The movie does not have a lot of content, it has a very tight runtime of 86 minutes, which I found to be a big factor in my enjoyment of it. Too many movies are well over 120 minutes long, and it feels like they drag on and on. The first movie I reviewed for this blog, Land of Bad (2024), also a made for streaming movie, is 114 minutes long, and they could have easily shaved 25 minutes off of it to keep it interesting, but instead, I felt trapped and tortured in that movie’s world. Outbreak felt like it never had the time to slow down, and kept driving forward. It was a refreshing watch for these reasons, despite not being amazing. 

As the movie continues, we see Neil attack his coworker and daughter (his son’s girlfriend) in their home as they have also turned. In this scene, I really liked the parallels of his wife holding the gun, and her being unable to fire it, like we saw with Neil and the dog and the same coworker in the opening scene of the movie. This is where the first hints that something’s not quite right pop up, as the zombies do not attack and try to turn Neil, but rather are holding him down and choking him out. The ravenous biting we see in most zombie movies are missing here. 

Neil finally maintains radio contact with Gibson who is repeatedly and calmly telling him “I know what’s happening. I know. Stay where you are and we will come to you.” At this point, Abby has been infected, and Neil has her in the back seat of the truck tied up, trying to find a cure for her. He tells Gibson, “We need to get to a hospital. She’s been infected.” repeatedly, and they are trying to get him to stay put so they can come to him. They agree to meet back at Neil’s house. When they get there, Neil sees that Gibson and the other rangers have also turned. What’s interesting in this scene is that zombie-Gibson is holding his gun and aiming it at Neil.

Neil has Abby cuffed in zip ties, and pulls her out of the car. At this point, a rather unexpected twist happens. We see that Gibson is indeed not a zombie, and neither is Abby, or the other two rangers at the scene. This movie is about one man’s psychotic breakdown at the loss of his own son. In a flashback scene, we learn that Neil and Ben had an argument, which leads to Ben running out of the house with Neil chasing him. In the argument, they tussle a bit over a backpack Ben is wearing, and he loses his footing and falls down a cliff. Neil rushes down the path to the bottom and yells out for his son. All he sees is his son’s flannel and a zombie comic book from his son’s bag. Neil yells out for his son, and this is where the psychotic break all started; the camera pans down to Neil’s feet and we are shown Ben gasping for his last breaths as Neil runs away, still yelling for his son. 

Back to the scene at Neil’s house with Abby, the other rangers shoot Neil, because he’s pointing his gun at his wife. We see the flash of the “zombie’s” faces, and they are perfectly normal. Neil slumps to the ground beside his truck and looks at his own reflection in the sideview mirror, and sees himself as a zombie. Neil can’t accept this, and gets back up, and the rangers have to shoot him again, killing him.

I thought this ending was interesting, what seemed like a lone-hero survival thriller turned out to be one man’s psychotic break at the death of his son. There is however one scene that I had issues with. After Neil is killed, the camera pans up to a tree on the property, and we see a view from behind of an eagle perched upon a branch. Right before the cut to credits, the eagle turns its head toward the camera and the eagle is zombiefied. It was a confusing final thing to show on camera, and it ruins the twist ending. If that final shot wasn’t in the movie, this would have been so much better. Overall, I did enjoy this movie, it has a decent story, solid action scenes, and the use of lighting and scene framing was fairly good for being a zombie thriller for most of the middle of the story.

2.5 mallards/5

-Seann

Oh boy, what is there to say about this film that hasn’t been said before? This is the first true classic film that we’ve been offered by the randomizer, which is a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that I get to watch and dive deeply into a film that I haven’t considered for many years (honestly, I think the last time I watched this was in film school), but the curse is that I have to write a review of it. Obviously, I love this film. But, I don’t love it in an ‘it’s one of my favorite’ type of ways. I love this film because of the impact it has had on audiences and the legacy it has left for the medium as a whole. 

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) is a film that captured the hearts of many around the world, and still does to this day. This film is a great example of true movie magic, and many of the scenes are iconic (not to mention one of the most famous movie quotes of all time). I don’t think it would be farfetched to say that this film changed the trajectory of what major Hollywood movies became in the late 80’s and early 90’s, possibly having an equal impact to Jaws in 1975 (also directed by Spielberg). Part of me wonders if this movie was in some ways a response to Jaws, like maybe Spielberg realized he had made a mistake and was trying to fix it. This is, of course, not true, because this follows the same sort of set-up and purpose as Jaws. Both films cost around $10million to make. Jaws made a little under $500million, and E.T. brought in a staggering $800million. 

Alright, enough rambling, let me talk about why this movie is so good. I think E.T. is a perfect example of a film that does everything correctly on a fundamental level. The storytelling is great. The acting is fantastic all the way around (shout-out to friend of the blog Drew Barrymore). The Extra-Terrestrial himself is an iconic character design. The flying bicycle idea is astonishingly genius and iconic. The ending pulls at the heart-strings. Speaking of strings, John Williams knocked it out of the park on this one, as he usually does. The set design is immaculate – Elliot’s room is perfect. The themes of loneliness, feeling out of place, missing ‘home’, and friendship are timeless and universal. The movie is funny in parts, exciting in others, and occasionally a little scary. What does the film do well? Well….everything, really. That’s the simple truth.

What does the film do poorly? Really, there’s very little. This movie is like the Great Gatsby of movies (shoutout to friend of the blog F. Scott Fitzgerald). It’s really hard to poke any holes whatsoever in the creation of this one, and impossible to find any glaring weaknesses. If anything, there can be a few minor complaints about the pacing. Maybe the scenes where E.T. and Elliot are being examined by the doctors are too long and drawn out. Maybe the ending chase is too long and there’s too many action shots of them riding bicycles. Maybe (and this was fixed in some of the re-mastered or re-edited versions) some of the scenes of Elliot at school could be shortened. Maybe we could get more details on Dad and Sally in Mexico. Would any of these make the film better? Likely not, and in fact they’re more likely to bring up more issues of their own. 

Moving away from the film itself a little bit, I’ll write a bit about the importance of the legacy of the film. I’ve used the word “iconic” a few times, and I feel that term is often over-used, but appropriate here. The image of the silhouetted bicycle in front of the moon means only one thing. When meaning and reference can be expressed without the need for words, and in such a minimally designed image, there’s no other word that can be used other than iconic. This is a film that is shown in film classes in colleges all over the country. I remember watching this during our study of mise-en-scene, paying special attention to the lighting and set design. I watched it again in a later class with focus on the sound design. Again, in a screen writing class, we discussed elements of the script that make the film heart-warming. This is such a solid film that it becomes a great platform to study the elements of film-making, and while not the most high-brow capital-a Artistic film out there, being used in such a way is still high praise. 

Stepping even further away, I would be remiss not to mention the cultural impact that the merchandise associated with this film had on the 1980’s (which I was not around the experience). Following the successful line of Star Wars toys, there were E.T. dolls and action figures. There were E.T. lunchboxes, t-shirts, jewelry, Christmas ornaments, playing cards, snowglobes, video games, etc. If you wanted an item with E.T. on it, chances are you could find it somewhere and someway. Yes, there’s even an E.T. funko pop, the ultimate designation of pop culture relevance. 

There has been a lot of commentary, especially in our era of MCU dominance, on the commercialization and marketability of art mediums such as film. While I’m not prepared to get into the specifics of the debate here, I’d just like to say that E.T., and the aforementioned Star Wars before it, are to blame for the ubiquitousness of super hero media. The difference between the two, and why I have no issue with E.T. (or the older Star Wars films) marketing other accessories like this, is frankly because the films are good. They made a good movie and people liked the movie so much that they wanted to buy a shirt that said the name of the movie on it. That’s fine. Now consumers are sold the shirt, and then the movie is made after-the-fact. That’s the furthest I’ll go on that subject, but maybe if we get an MCU movie randomly I’ll go into more depth. 

In conclusion, this movie is going to get a high grade from me. I’d be doing myself a disservice if I gave it anything lower. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) has a score of 7.9/10 on IMDB, a score of 3.8/5 on Letterboxd, and a 99% (!) Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes. I feel like this film still holds up, and it’s retained the title of classic even 40+ years later. There are a few dated moments of GI, but instead of breaking immersion, they’re kind of endearing. I think everyone should see this movie at least once in their life. It’s great. 

4.5 mallards/5

-Maxwell