So the pictures I included. The one directly above this is Bill on the left and Danny on the right, with the creature that bit Bill in the jar. And the DVD cover is just weird. Honestly looks more like a Mad Max image. That is supposed to be Danny, I guess. But Danny was never walking outside like this, and while he did have a pistol he never had a rifle. Weird.

The movie starts with a weird sequence where Danny is responding to a police call from his mom. At her house there is something in the pantry. Tentacles grab mom and yank her away. He then wakes up to it being a dream. It’s 3 am, he calls Gwen. And it appears that Danny is living with his uncle Bill. The next morning we see Bill get bitten by something which Danny puts in a jar and hands off to his ex. She takes it as they have an awkward conversation. Weird dream sequence aside, this is actually a decent start and setup. After a couple minutes more of Bill and Danny starting to work on a car in the garage, we jump to Gwen talking to Dr. Wu.

Doctor Wu is a strange portion of this movie.  She is clearly killed around 15 minutes into the movie. But around the hour mark when Gwen is talking to Danny on the phone she says that Wu is working on an antidote which should be ready in a couple days. Mind you, we never hear this. The initial meeting of Gwen and Wu has the nematode being shown to Wu, who comments on how massive this specimen is. But when it molts and wanders away from the table, the scene simply ends. No real concern about where it went. And then when we do see Wu again, she engages in a casual goodbye with a coworker before making a desperate call to Gwen where she leaves a message letting her know how toxic the creature is. So toxic that there is a 2 hour window between bitten and death. Also, the one that was brought to Wu and then molted has now grown to massive proportions. Could be just the camera angle and the creature is the size of ones we will see later. 

We know Bill had been bitten at the start of the movie. So Gwen taking the creature to Wu, and then the examination of it, all takes place within less than an hour. Because we do go back to Bill and Danny in the garage working on a car. And he seems to be doing ok. Danny leaves him alone for a minute and Bill gets bit by a second one! But he takes a pill and seems to be better. Now if these are as toxic as they say, a second bite over an hour after the first would likely be instantly deadly. Plus it certainly feels like it has been more than an hour has passed since the bite. Sorta. Time feels like it is going slowly for Bill and Danny, but fast outside the garage.

But now we get to where I have a major problem with things. There is an earthquake tremor that starts while both Danny and Bill are under the car. Head under the car, legs sticking out. Danny smartly crawls out. Bill does not. Honestly, it looks like Bill is dead. And I like that, because the second bite seems to have accelerated the situation. But with Danny out from under the car, his way to pull Bill out involves sliding his legs under the car and then trying to pull him. Uhhh… This is dumb as hell. From outside, you just grab a leg and drag him out. The scene was a bit long winded and lacked common sense. Because a side effect of the tremor is that a shelf tips over and knocks the car off the jack stands. Crushing Bill and pinning Dannys legs. They should have simply had the setup be Danny with his legs under the car and Bill with his full body under it. Tremor hits and the car slips off the jackstand. Simple. Clean. Makes sense. He missed a call from Gwen that would have been super important. But he watched as the call came in and he chose not to answer. With him trying to get back together, he would have answered. But there is a great detail here. As he is looking at the screen, we see the battery is red. This comes into play later as the phone dies.

Then while pinned under the car a box falls on Danny. Which felt a bit like Ash in the Evil Dead franchise. Silly things falling on him. Around this time I started saying out loud “Situational Awareness!” He’s a cop. He should be trained in that. But he made a dumb decision sticking his legs under the car. Then he is talking to Bill, who doesn’t respond as he is dead. For some reason he realizes his legs are trapped under the car, but not that the car would have crushed Bill.

He grabs a broom and tries to use it to lever the car off his legs. Stupid in the extreme. A wooden broom handle isn’t going to do anything but break. And it does. Pulling out his phone, he tries to make an emergency call, and we see his battery is almost dead. The call fails to go through, so he tries to text Gwen. Which also doesn’t go through. Then calls his mom and engages in a bit of random meaningless chatter at first rather than simply go with something more like “Send police to Bill’s garage.” He then manages to listen to the message from Gwen and get the general idea of how bad it could be to be bit before his phone dies. Although it dies in a dumb way. Going all static and breaking up. We all know that when your phone battery hits a certain point it simply shuts off. No crackling. No real warning. Just suddenly black screen.

A cop pulls up and starts looking around, but Danny has passed out in the garage. The cop wanders around and then leaves just as Danny wakes up. But too late. 

He then begins to scavenge. Pulling the phone from Bill’s pockets. Then his pocket knife. His wallet. Then the magic pills. Which we never see what they are, but Danny is thrilled to find them and pops a few.

He finally has a good idea when he realizes the jack is kinda close, he justs needs something to help him get it. And the next idea is drag a ham sandwich from the fridge and chow down on it. 

Situational Awareness! You been trapped for like 30 minutes. Hunger is not likely a concern right now. But then a creature shows up and bites him. We know this means he is now on a roughly 2 hour timer. He manages to get the jack and free himself. But it is a bit of a hollow victory as he can’t get out of the garage. But he does seem to be marginally ok. Bit on one leg, Other leg looked pretty jacked up from the car crash. And only a few minutes after having been bit, he is starting to hallucinate. Not a symptom that Bill had, although the creature that bit Danny was much larger than the one that bit Bill. A bizarre plot line kicks in here, because Danny found a picture of Bill and his mom when he was rummaging through Bill’s wallet. He tries questioning Bill about the reason for the picture. For some reason, he leaps to the conclusion that there was something happening between his mom and uncle.

But when his mom calls Bill’s phone, he suddenly has a life line. He starts with the important thing. Get help to come to me. Now. But then instead of getting off the phone so she can get help on the way, he decides to interrogate her about whether there was something between the two of them. And it turns into a long conversation about the family dynamic where he is told Bill was his father. It was very out of place. Given that there are creatures attacking him, and he knows that he only has so long before the venom kills him.

We have more creatures attacking. A board from the ceiling falls on his face. A worm levitates down to him and bites him on the shoulder. He kills it. Danny hiding in a car, but then choosing to get out of the car. Car was sorta safe. Gwen talking to a cop and telling him how important it is to get to Danny fast, but also wait for her to get there so she can ride along. And then cops showing up but can’t manage to open the garage door. At this point, in full darkness outside, Gwen says that they have to hurry because he has less than half an hour left. And the ultimate stupid moment. When Danny is wrestling with one and resorts to biting it in the neck. The sort of bite that sometimes is used in movies to tear out the jugular of a bad guy as a final girl makes a desperate last ditch effort to live. But the worm? A bite out of the “neck” and it goes limp and dies. Really dumb.

It eventually ends with them getting him to the hospital in time for the anti-venom to be administered. Although if that worked, why would they have not brought someone with it to the garage? 

And there is a bigger issue I have long had with deadly toxin being halted at the last possible minute. If it is deadly, it is doing damage. But after getting to the hospital, he is all good.

So where do I stand on this. It’s a shame. Because it felt like it could have been good. It could have been a decent story. The acting overall was pretty decent. But some of the story decisions, whether by the writer or the director… Were just bad. The penultimate moment of Danny, Gwen, and his mom sitting on the hospital bed having a light chuckle made me think of pretty much any Hallmark movie. And then it had a final moment that is part of what I kept thinking about all movie. Aside from Situational Awareness! This felt like it could have been a precursor to Tremors. Which was a fun thought. I know they couldn’t fully embrace that, but it did have that kind of vibe to it. The final moment was an overhead of Bill’s place and we see a creature burst out of the ground. Tremors style! (Although this doesn’t fit with the mythology set up in the movie, because the creatures hate light, but this one breaks out of the ground into direct sunlight.) 

This is honestly one of the more conflicting movies for me to write about. Because some parts of it were absolutely the sort of thing I would give it an 8 for. And then some parts of it are at best worthy of about a 2. Split the difference and call it a 5. Final answer.