(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters. If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment. If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Follows Sloane and four other students who take shelter in their high school during a zombie outbreak.”
Someone once wrote that zombie movies – across all of their iterations – say more about us as a people – i.e. how we deal with chaos, how we cope with loss, what we’re willing to do to survive – and I suppose that’s true. Though I haven’t spent a great deal of time invested in planning how I and mine might approach the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse, I’ve certainly watched enough movies to give me a respectable range of alternatives with which to eke out a modest attempt at seeing another sunrise. Mind you: I’m no spring chicken, but I do like to think that I’m only as old as I feel, and presently I’m feeling like I’d have a serviceable chance so long as I paired up with like-minded folks who were equally intent on dishing out more shots to the head than they’re willing to receive. That always seems to do the trick … so long as real zombies follow the rules laid down in film.
From what I’ve read, 2025’s This Is Not A Test is actually adapted from a 2012 Young Adult novel by Courtney Summers; and – on one level – that’s painfully obvious. There are no mature voices anywhere across the story’s spectrum; and any who are hinted at are done so more as expressions of oppression and/or deception, a common thread that unites a great deal of YA literature. An absent mother. An abusive father. Why, even the high school English teacher – Mr. Baxter (played Luke Macfarlane) – exists here entirely as a voice of authority who shouldn’t be trusted nor taken into the confidences of the – ahem – all-knowing students (about whom Test is consumed). He’s even painted as a kinda/sorta closeted predator who stays in the shadows so that he might keep his lustful eyes on one of his pupils; it’s only the Apocalypse who brought him out of his shell, and he’s eventually left for dead (though “payback is a bitch”) when push comes to shove in this teenage-heavy End Times struggle.
After a clunky and protracted set-up which has flashbacks unfolding within flashbacks, Sloane Price (Olivia Holt) and her fellow students sequester themselves safely inside Cortez High School not long after civilization collapses. Inside, they fortify their position by securing the doors and windows as best they can; and – trusting they’ll need to last for some time before rescue – they gather as much food, water, and ‘lost and found’ clothing as the institution can provide. Only then do they feel safe enough to begin engaging in the usual teenage rituals of sitting around, talking about their feelings, reflecting upon how their lives have been unfair up to this point, and succumbing to their hormones. At this point, Test tries very hard to adapt the tenor of one of the better John Hughes’ movies, but these paper-thin creations don’t quite have enough of the right stuff to make writer/director Adam MacDonald’s effort feel like much more than a cautionary After School Special.
Structurally, Test has a good foundation.
2004’s Dawn Of The Dead (from Zack Snyder) made great use of the quintessential shopping mall as its setting for a great deal of the action and intrigue. Test rather smartly swaps that out in favor of a school gymnasium and then allows its players to make their way about the dimly lit hallways and classrooms for most of its 100+-minutes run time; but MacDonald’s script never quite finds much good symbolic use of a place committed for higher education serving as a survivor’s camp at the end of the world. Instead, he invests in great deal of teen-level exchanges – i.e. constant quibbles over who’s in charge, why didn’t daddy love me enough, etc. – leaving what could’ve minimally been an efficient chiller to have little-to-no momentum. The best moments are those infused with zombie-contact, but there’s so little of that in here that one wonders what audience might ultimately show up and take notice.
Where Dawn Of The Dead differs significantly, however, is with its various characters. The Snyder film benefits from folks whose motivations range from good to borderline nefarious, and a great deal of audience investment gets derived from altercations between these conflicting mindsets being isolated but attempting to collaborate if only for survival’s sake. MacDonald’s Test has little-to-none of this, instead choosing to exploit mild ‘power trips’ between the script’s small handful of males attempting at various times to be the sole ‘alpha.’ Given the fact that none of them really have any notable life experience with which to back up their respective opinions, there just isn’t anything worth latching on to in the mix. In contrast, Test ends up making just random noise – the kind that anyone trapped in extended quarantine might make, much less those with zombies howling at the front door – and that’s a whole lot of nothing special.
This Is Not A Test (2025) was produced by Anova Pictures, Blue Fox Entertainment, BondIt Media Capital, North Avenue Pictures, and WorldOne Entertainment. The publicity materials provided to me suggests that the picture is chiefly available for streaming on Shudder. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I can assure readers that the provided sights and sounds are quite good: MacDonald is no slouch at constructing the action sequences, but there really needed to be more of them in order to elevate this one beyond a one-timer. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? As I viewed this one via streaming, there were no special features to consider.
Alas … only Mildly Recommended.
The truth is that there really are no bad zombie movies, provided that there are zombies in it; and that’s where This Is Not A Test (2025) fails to meet minimal standards. With only handfuls of the walking dead and only even a handful of furious encounters between the living and the deceased there’s a decided lack of theatrical tension between all involved; and writer/director MacDonald fills that void barely enough teen angst and tween-ish melodrama to make this one feel more like 1985’s The Breakfast Club than it does Dawn Of The Dead (2004), which, at least, it structurally resembles. Though I wanted to care about the characters, there just isn’t any compelling reason to hope that they can avoid being turned into zombie chow; and that will always – always – hurt the end result.
In the interest of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Shudder provided me with complimentary streaming access to This Is Not A Test (2025) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Follows Sloane and four other students who take shelter in their high school during a zombie outbreak.”
Someone once wrote that zombie movies – across all of their iterations – say more about us as a people – i.e. how we deal with chaos, how we cope with loss, what we’re willing to do to survive – and I suppose that’s true. Though I haven’t spent a great deal of time invested in planning how I and mine might approach the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse, I’ve certainly watched enough movies to give me a respectable range of alternatives with which to eke out a modest attempt at seeing another sunrise. Mind you: I’m no spring chicken, but I do like to think that I’m only as old as I feel, and presently I’m feeling like I’d have a serviceable chance so long as I paired up with like-minded folks who were equally intent on dishing out more shots to the head than they’re willing to receive. That always seems to do the trick … so long as real zombies follow the rules laid down in film.
From what I’ve read, 2025’s This Is Not A Test is actually adapted from a 2012 Young Adult novel by Courtney Summers; and – on one level – that’s painfully obvious. There are no mature voices anywhere across the story’s spectrum; and any who are hinted at are done so more as expressions of oppression and/or deception, a common thread that unites a great deal of YA literature. An absent mother. An abusive father. Why, even the high school English teacher – Mr. Baxter (played Luke Macfarlane) – exists here entirely as a voice of authority who shouldn’t be trusted nor taken into the confidences of the – ahem – all-knowing students (about whom Test is consumed). He’s even painted as a kinda/sorta closeted predator who stays in the shadows so that he might keep his lustful eyes on one of his pupils; it’s only the Apocalypse who brought him out of his shell, and he’s eventually left for dead (though “payback is a bitch”) when push comes to shove in this teenage-heavy End Times struggle.
After a clunky and protracted set-up which has flashbacks unfolding within flashbacks, Sloane Price (Olivia Holt) and her fellow students sequester themselves safely inside Cortez High School not long after civilization collapses. Inside, they fortify their position by securing the doors and windows as best they can; and – trusting they’ll need to last for some time before rescue – they gather as much food, water, and ‘lost and found’ clothing as the institution can provide. Only then do they feel safe enough to begin engaging in the usual teenage rituals of sitting around, talking about their feelings, reflecting upon how their lives have been unfair up to this point, and succumbing to their hormones. At this point, Test tries very hard to adapt the tenor of one of the better John Hughes’ movies, but these paper-thin creations don’t quite have enough of the right stuff to make writer/director Adam MacDonald’s effort feel like much more than a cautionary After School Special.
Structurally, Test has a good foundation.
2004’s Dawn Of The Dead (from Zack Snyder) made great use of the quintessential shopping mall as its setting for a great deal of the action and intrigue. Test rather smartly swaps that out in favor of a school gymnasium and then allows its players to make their way about the dimly lit hallways and classrooms for most of its 100+-minutes run time; but MacDonald’s script never quite finds much good symbolic use of a place committed for higher education serving as a survivor’s camp at the end of the world. Instead, he invests in great deal of teen-level exchanges – i.e. constant quibbles over who’s in charge, why didn’t daddy love me enough, etc. – leaving what could’ve minimally been an efficient chiller to have little-to-no momentum. The best moments are those infused with zombie-contact, but there’s so little of that in here that one wonders what audience might ultimately show up and take notice.
Where Dawn Of The Dead differs significantly, however, is with its various characters. The Snyder film benefits from folks whose motivations range from good to borderline nefarious, and a great deal of audience investment gets derived from altercations between these conflicting mindsets being isolated but attempting to collaborate if only for survival’s sake. MacDonald’s Test has little-to-none of this, instead choosing to exploit mild ‘power trips’ between the script’s small handful of males attempting at various times to be the sole ‘alpha.’ Given the fact that none of them really have any notable life experience with which to back up their respective opinions, there just isn’t anything worth latching on to in the mix. In contrast, Test ends up making just random noise – the kind that anyone trapped in extended quarantine might make, much less those with zombies howling at the front door – and that’s a whole lot of nothing special.
This Is Not A Test (2025) was produced by Anova Pictures, Blue Fox Entertainment, BondIt Media Capital, North Avenue Pictures, and WorldOne Entertainment. The publicity materials provided to me suggests that the picture is chiefly available for streaming on Shudder. As for the technical specifications? While I’m no trained video expert, I can assure readers that the provided sights and sounds are quite good: MacDonald is no slouch at constructing the action sequences, but there really needed to be more of them in order to elevate this one beyond a one-timer. Lastly, if you’re looking for special features? As I viewed this one via streaming, there were no special features to consider.
Alas … only Mildly Recommended.
The truth is that there really are no bad zombie movies, provided that there are zombies in it; and that’s where This Is Not A Test (2025) fails to meet minimal standards. With only handfuls of the walking dead and only even a handful of furious encounters between the living and the deceased there’s a decided lack of theatrical tension between all involved; and writer/director MacDonald fills that void barely enough teen angst and tween-ish melodrama to make this one feel more like 1985’s The Breakfast Club than it does Dawn Of The Dead (2004), which, at least, it structurally resembles. Though I wanted to care about the characters, there just isn’t any compelling reason to hope that they can avoid being turned into zombie chow; and that will always – always – hurt the end result.
In the interest of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Shudder provided me with complimentary streaming access to This Is Not A Test (2025) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review. Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.
-- EZ
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