Hi, how are ya? How did you spend your evening last night? Did you watch the Oscars? I didn't. I spent my time watching a sh!%%y movie called "Virus X", released by Lionsgate. Maybe I should have stuck with what George C. Scott once called "a meat parade."
Danita Herrington (Sybil Danning) wants a virus, and she wants it now! Why? For world domination of course! I wish I was making that last part up, but I digress. Anyways, Dr. Graveman (indie horror vet and Timo Rose regular Joe Zaso) has it made-an advanced stain of the H1N1 virus that kills in 3 days. Well, it ends up infecting a group of medical scientists, so they need to be quarantined and all that jazz. Can they survive? Why does Jarren (Domiziano Arcangeli) have such laughable hair? Will you be able to stay awake?
While I'll give it minor points for the cinematography, color tones, nasty gore effects and the ambient score by Shawn K. Clement, "Virus X" is just a bore to sit through. The acting ranges from non-existent (Arcangeli) to over-done (everyone else.) In fact, so many of the performances feature actors overacting as if they have guns to their heads that it almost becomes unintentionally amusing in that aspect. There's also no real reason given to care at all about the medical scientists, as we aren't given any real back story about them, and so many of them are such bad actors. The movie also has an intriguing element to the plot-well, everything except Jarron and Herrington-what with the viral fears that seem to pop up every few years, but the movie is unable to do anything with them. It just ends up feeling like a rough draft than an actual movie.
There's no reason to see "Virus X", except for the interviews that serve as a special feature. They are all done for a show called "Eye on Entertainment", hosted by a bubble headed blond named Dawna Lee Heising, that feels more like a parody than it does the real thing. I even looked it up after watching said interviews to see if it was real, and sure enough, it is.
So yeah, I've seen worse this year (hello "Season of the Witch"), but that's no real excuse. By the time the whole thing is said and done, the only thing you'll catch from "Virus X" is boredom. Next time, I'm sitting with the cool kids and catching the Oscars or something. It can't be as bad as this.
