This Is Not A Test Review: A Coming-of-Age Zombie Horror That Goes Nowhere

The zombie horror subgenre often requires bold reimagining to feel fresh again. Despite being well-versed in the genre — with films like Out Come the Wolves, Slasher, and Hell Motel under his directorial belt — Adam MacDonald apparently appears unconvinced on this fact. His latest film, This Is Not a Test, suggests a filmmaker content to operate within the familiar confines of the horror genre rather than push beyond them.

An adaptation of Courtney Summers’ young adult novel of the same name, This Is Not a Test is one zombie-traumatized teen film too many, even as it beautifully explores the societal and moral breakdown that emerges when survival is left to adolescents. It’s a sad and almost laughable non-linear narrative that, in theory, should have a worthy thing or two to say about growing up under pressure and its impact on the innocence and moral fragility of youth.

This Is Not A Test Makes Adults Out of Budding Teens

A dysfunctional home, courtesy of an abusive father and an absent older sister Lily (Joelle Farrow) — who fled that abuse — already sounds like an apocalypse for any teenager. That’s exactly what protagonist Sloane (Olivia Holt) thinks in This Is Not A Test. That perspective soon takes a turn when the suburb-turned-90s town of Cortez, where she calls home, is overrun with zombies.

MacDonald stages the outbreak with visual flair: bright red blood stains pale white snow, and the chorus of zombie shrieks slices through an A Quiet Place-esque silence — the zombies are to noise what flies are to campfire. Sloane and friends Trace (Carson McCormac), Grace (Chloe Avakian), Cary (Corteon Moore), and Rhys (Froy Gutierrez) find refuge in their school.

Bereft of adult supervision and decision-making, the teens do what they know best: lead by emotion when the situation demands pragmatism, and be led by pragmatism when a sprinkle of emotion is required. Cary seems to be the only one bold enough to make tough decisions: “We have to do things we don’t want to do, if we’re gonna make it,” he insists. But consensus proves elusive.

This Is Not A Test Has No Definite Message

This Is Not A Test’s title suggests brutal confrontation with reality. To be fair, this does happen. Sloane is one zombie-led murder away from reaching breaking point. Her pain is already enough for a teenager; her first sight of raw violence comes from her father. Now, she has to watch friends, family, and strangers alike get munched by the undead.

One would think these near-death experiences would force a mature shift in her perspective, since the psychological groundwork for profound character evolution is all there. But it never does, not for Sloane or anyone else. At no point does Cary’s hardened pragmatism reshape the group’s moral compass, a development that would later pay off in interesting ways. The film circles around heavy themes of trauma and survival ethics without landing on a coherent stance.

Olivia Holt is the Faint Silver Lining of This Is Not A Test

Holt, no stranger to genre fare after appearances in Heart Eyes and Totally Killer, commits fully to Sloane’s anguish. She beautifully delivers the genre candy in the form of visceral screams and trembling vulnerability, apt for a character who sleeps to the sound of zombies clawing their way into a supposedly secure refuge and has been an unlucky witness to more than one zombie feeding frenzy. This is so, even when the script reduces her to muted despair for long stretches.

Corteon Moore (viewers can recognize him as Ellis Stevens from From), whose uncanny resemblance to a young Barack Obama is momentarily distracting, brings a measured cool to Cary. His calm, almost brazen demeanor suggests deeper character dynamism than the screenplay ultimately allows. In the end, one is left wondering what exactly audiences are meant to take away from the This Is Not A Test experience beyond stylish blood splatter and a sharp punk-rock soundtrack.