Pathogen

I watched this movie in Fantaspoa/2009, together with the documentary "Zombie Girl" (read my review on that movie). It was a very good experience, mainly because of the documentary. After the movie session the audience had a very enlightening talk with 3 horror-movies specialists.

Technically speaking, this movie is terrible. It is full of continuity problems, including sequences where the time of the day changes from one scene to the other, with a dialog starting in daylight and continuing in a night-dark environment, then going back to a daylight environment, all in the same conversation of the characters. The sound is sometimes inaudible, but most of the time it's just bad. The actors are completely amateur, being a group of Emily's school colleagues. If you are into "B" movies for the fun of its mistakes, you'll love this movie.

There are 2 good things about this movie. The script, that even though is not exactly an innovation, is well written. And the different camera takes, that also have nothing new to it, but Emily managed to make the movie very dynamic, keeping it at a good pace. Of course taking care of every detail in a movie is a huge task for a single person, specially an inexperienced 12 years old child. But the fact is, this film is entertaining. It's not boring, which is more than can be said of some Hollywood professional works.

After news of a setback, a pharmaceutical company realizes that a deadly toxic pathogen has been accidentally released into a small town's local water supply and is starting to affect the local citizens bringing a teen and her friends to save the town from the ravenous creatures.

Overall, this was a decent if problematic indie genre effort. One of the better elements within this one is the strong focus on how the pathogen itself is operating and starts to work its way into the population. Featuring a strong starting point about getting the pharmaceutical team to understand what's going on and how the disease got loose from the facility to infect the water supply and the stupidity of the population to continue to get the deadly technology passed around to others despite plenty of warning from the authorities from the danger. The connection this gets to getting the schoolgirls involved by having the one girl connect the dots about the strange signs that something's going on in town and realizing it's been the news reports being right all along and the concurrent zombie apocalypse proves everything right. None of this is breaking new ground in the genre but it successfully accomplished the necessary points in getting the reanimating agent out to the public and the survivors to be aware of what's going on serving this quite nicely. As well, there's also the series of successful zombie attacks that generate a slew of solid action scenes. With the early scenes of the shuffling hordes stalking the city and causing the first encounters that start spreading the disease amongst the population, this sets up some intriguing sequences that are soon played off incredibly well with the second half generating far more impressive and involved scenes. As the swarming hordes grow in number and intensity, the idea of fighting off the adults and classmates that are turned into vicious creatures makes for a solid series of intriguing scenes showing the group getting overwhelmed and resorting to some intriguing low-budget gore effects and make-up to fight them off. The enthusiasm and infection for the genre manage to work quite well here since this does highlight the overarching issue here in that the excessively obvious low-budget nature of this one presents itself in nearly every instance, from the presentation, production, effects, and overall approach that this carries, which considering the source is an issue but not a detrimental one.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and children-in-jeopardy.

I just finished watching my copy of "Pathogen" and I have to say I loved it. The excitement, love, and fun that was put on the screen entertained me way beyond the typical mega-budged blockbuster. Congrats on a wonderful creation. Emily, please keep 'em coming! You are a very talented young lady, and also very blessed to have such supportive parents and friends.

As much as I loved the movie, I found the commentaries joyful as well. The actors obviously had great respect for you, and with good reason. The amount of work this took is staggering to myself, an adult. Heck, even taking the time to post this little note is about all I find myself having time for.

The whole cast turned in really fun performances, but the stand out actor is young Tiger Darrow. If she's not in either a major motion picture or a buzz-worth indy film (whichever she chooses) before she's 18, I'll eat my keyboard.

As for other people trying to decide if they should order the DVD, if you like encouraging the next generation, if you enjoy stories told across a dinner table, if you like zombie movies, or if you think you'd like to see a young talent on the ground floor this is the DVD for you. And it's really cheap, too! No price gouging here, no artiste pricing. Best of all, when Emily is a big name director, you will have the sweetest privilege ever...being able to say "Oh yah, I've know about her for years" to your out of touch friends.

This project is truly a testament to the wonders of the modern age, not the showy ones, but the personal ones, and Emily M. Hagins is showing us the world inside our door.

This movie received a very positive review on www.aintitcool.com, so I decided to buy a copy.

I have to say, for a group of mostly kids, this movie was very impressive. It combines aspects of some very popular and funny horror movies, and at the same time has some very original moments.

Of course the technical aspects are limited, however, I have seen movies from larger companies that have a lower production value (I'm looking at you "Ax'em").

Find a copy of the DVD, and keep an eye on the career of Miss Emily M. Hagins.

-Mario Xavier