They both take place on Christmas eve in high rise office buildings but comparisons to Die Hard can end there, as this one is about the shuffling dead.
The Terror Experiment (aka Fight or Flight) is a stock bio-hazard flick, a lifeless (and not just the zombies) retooling of Resident Evil, 28 Days Later and The Crazies.
It’s cheap as all hell to look at, full of oblique/Dutch angles, shaky cam, horrible CGI noxious gas (which wasn’t necessary to induce slumber in this viewer), dismal special effects and the surprise appearance by both Jason London (Dazed and Confused) and Judd Nelson (The Breakfast Club), both of whom are above this, or at the very least, should be.
When an explosion is set off in a federal building, a nefarious government biological warfare plot is exposed by a Thoreau-quoting wing-nut survivalist. A gas is unleashed, which turns to powder and causes “extreme anger and paranoia” by stimulating the adrenal gland.
There was no adrenaline charge here though, as unawares office types scramble for safety and head for the roof amid security lock-downs, while their colleagues turn into zombies and do what zombies tediously do.
More details of the so-called “F-Squared Project” are released. This includes the presence of a blocker, an inhibitor drug that prevents zombie symptoms that are hidden in a safe in one of the labs and there are numerous references that will pique the interest of 9/11 conspiracy loons (“if you need to, pull it down” and Building 7 etc.)
There’s also paranoid blather about MK ultra, the CIA’s mind-control program, but more importantly, this is some of the very worst cinematography you’ll ever see, complete with sound-stage blues and grays.
Skip quickly.
*1/2 (out of 5)
Really Awful Movies 