‘This Is Not A Test’ review: A drag with the undead

This Is Not A Test is a test of patience that never quite pays off in its apocalyptic coming-of-age tale.

Adapted from Courtney Summers’ novel of the same name, This is Not a Test places its faith in a gang of high schoolers who are more strangers to each other than believable peers. Held together by its characters’ threadbare personalities and mismatched pacing,  never quite matches the potential on the page, even with its protagonist, Sloan (Olivia Holt), and her storyline.

Writer/director Adam MacDonald quickly establishes the tense atmosphere of Sloan’s home life from the jump. She’s clearly not doing well, wrestling with suicidal ideation after her sister has taken off, leaving her alone with their abusive father. It’s no wonder then that it’s difficult for Sloan to register the zombie apocalypse erupting in the streets when it starts, or when she takes her chance and escapes the home that was never really safe.

From this opening sequence of events, This Is Not A Test goes backwards and forwards in time in its first half. As a storytelling device, it should work to fill in the gaps, but in execution, it disrupts the natural flow of tension you’d expect (and need) from something in this genre.

Push and pull.

Photo Credit: IFC, Shudder

As the central character, Sloan gets the bulk of the character development in these flashbacks, painting a picture of a teen dependent on her older sister for stability in an unstable household. Her sister’s departure leaves her unmoored, and the apocalypse doesn’t help matters either.

Unfortunately, the other teens in This Is Not A Test are grossly underdeveloped in comparison. Despite some knowing Sloan (mostly through their association with Sloan’s sister), there is no sense that they actually know one another. More strangers than feeling like actual classmates, this ragtag team of high school students doesn’t have the chemistry to make what happens to them later connect with the viewer. Moments designed to shock in the film’s second half lack full impact, because the work done to establish these characters as fully dimensional just isn’t there.

This is likely a consequence of adapting the novel for film. On the page, there’s more time to flesh out the characters that film doesn’t necessarily allow for. In adaptation, allowances have to be made, and shifting the bulk of the focus to Sloan allows the novel’s exploration of certain themes lik to surface (though not as strongly as it could have). But the writing sacrifices the development of the other characters as a result. It’s a shame, because more onscreen development could have made certain emotional and dramatic beats resonate more strongly.

Coming home.

Photo Credit: IFC, Shudder

Where This Is Not A Test works is in the payoff for Sloan’s storyline. Home is supposed to be a safe place, but when it’s not, you find your tethers to make it survivable until you can finally get away. With Sloan’s dependence on her sister, Lily, Holt conveys Sloan’s yearning for her sister’s return. With one text from Lily, everything feels right again. There is hope. But having that one tether, that one lifeline, is not enough. And how Sloan’s arc evolves to address the fragility of that dependence, and what happens to compromise well done.

Making up the horror within This Is Not A Test are the infected, and, for the most part, the designs are pretty decent. The usage of blood reds on the infected stands out in incredible contrast to the frostier environment that makes up the city of Cortez. The visual language clearly demonstrates that something is wrong with the way these contrasts are handled. The use of sound design, particularly when the teens are inside the school and hear the infected banging all night, easily disturbs them.

The bottom line.

This Is Not A Test doesn’t quite capture the human element that made Courtney Summers’ novel resonate over a decade ago. In a fairly well-trod genre and after living through a pandemic ourselves, that human element becomes all the more essential in setting a story like this apart from the pack. While Sloan’s story crawls to the surface, the weakness of the surrounding ensemble, which makes up the bulk of the film’s runtime, is harder to ignore.

This Is Not A Test is now playing in select theaters. Watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of IFC and Shudder. Read more articles by Sarah Musnicky here.

Sarah Musnicky