Movie Review: Biophage (2010)
Biophage is a low budget zombie movie directed by Mark Rapp. Someone somewhere has released a biochemical agent that has turned just about everybody in the world into biophages (zombies). A few people have survived—so far, anyway—but with so many hungry zombies roaming the streets avoiding an unwanted lunch date is no easy matter.
The two main characters are a soldier named Cain and his travelling companion Dr Bell. The beginning of the movie finds them in a small town, busy looking for survivors. They don’t find a single one, just lots and lots of zombies and they are forced to make a hasty exit in their car.
A few miles farther down the road, the car runs out of fuel and Cain and Bell, who need to get back to the Mount Bethel military research hospital, are forced to continue the rest of their journey on foot. They also need to seek out some much needed medical supplies. Needless to say, their journey is considerably more dangerous without their car and they encounter plenty of biophages. They also meet a few fellow survivors, most of whom prove to be every bit as dangerous as the zombies.
Back at Mount Bethel Dr Miller and his team are busy trying to find a cure for the phage, but Miller is becoming increasingly distracted because his marriage is failing and he lays a lot of the blame for this on Caine because the soldier had an affair with his wife Julia. It’s over now, but Miller is not the kind of man to forgive and forget and he gets in touch with Bell via the radio and tells him to kill Cain. If he does not he will not be allowed back inside the base. Killing someone in cold blood goes against everything that Bell believes in, but he is trapped between a rock and a hard place, so while Caine sleeps soundly, and enjoys erotic dreams of Julia, Bell has a sleepless night.
Biophage is not particularly scary or horrific and timid viewers need not be worried they will be confronted by a lot of blood and gore. There are a few nasty scenes, but the movie was shot in black and white, so any blood and gore that is on offer has very little shock factor value anyway.
Not many movies are shot in black and white these days, and why the producers decided to so, in this case, is a complete mystery to me, but the lack of colour did not spoil my enjoyment of the movie. There were a few times when the screen suddenly got a little brighter or darker for no apparent reason, and on several occasions the sound levels fluctuated, but Biophage was made on a budget of just $10, 000; so it is easy to be a little forgiving about any minor flaws in the quality of the production; and it has to be said that the quality of the acting is extremely good for such a low budget film.
Because I liked the characters in Biophage so much, I would have preferred to have seen a happier ending, but the way it all turns out works well, and if I am honest about it the producer’s chosen ending is probably more powerful than a happy one. I’d be more than happy to watch this one again someday so if I were giving it marks out of 10 I would probably award Biophage with a much-deserved 8 out of 10.