The Terror Experiment (2010) User Reviews

An Absolute Waste of Talent

[gavin6942 · 3/10 · 3 April 2012]

This is the story of a building that is part of a "terror experiment" where an explosion happens and then certain people get infected and become feral. You know what happens next.

So, you take some decent actors like Judd Nelson, Robert Carradine, C. Thomas Howell and Jason London... you see their stars have fallen and you have get them cheap. And then you throw a script at them, as they take the bait. Voila! Another infection, pseudo-zombie film.

As I say, what a waste of talent. These guys are actually decent actors, and to put them in something like this gives the film too much credit and tarnishes whatever good name they have. We have seen this story dozens, hundreds, maybe a thousand times. The plot is so unoriginal, it is a surprise it was even made and a bigger surprise that it was distributed. I see several movies a week, and this is among the worst I saw this year.

A very cheesy Sci-Fy channel type movie that had a better cast then usual. I hope they were going for comedy. I say C-

[cosmo_tiger · 4/10 · 6 April 2012]

"They'll label me a terrorist but I'm a patriot." After a disgruntled veteran unleashes a virus in an office building in order to expose a government secret things don't go as planned. A group of uninfected survivors try to escape the quarantined building and get to safety before it's too late. I had no idea what to expect from this movie at all. I have been watching almost everything before watching the preview to help me have a clean slate when I start. I saw the cast and thought this may be OK. I wish I would have seen the preview first. I am not sure if they were going for a serious movie or a over-the-top cheesy comedy movie. I hope to God it was the latter because if they tried to make this a serious movie they failed. If they went for a comedy type movie they did a little better but this is a few steps above the Sci-Fy channel movies (because of the cast). I really thought this was going to be a zombie movie but it turned out to be a comedy (?) version of "Quarantine". Overall, not my kind of movie but some people will like it. I give it a C-.

Zombies in a building

[dslr88 · 3/10 · 14 September 2021]

An angry veteran sets off a virus in a building and turns the office staff into even angrier zombies. Put quarantine and 28 days later into the blender and the terror experiment is what comes out of the mix. It has a lot of unknowns in the cast along with old reliables like judd nelson and c thomas howell. There is some action but the whole thing can come across as being a little bit funny, silly and slow at times. The zombies are not really zombies and more like infected living people. If ever there was 2 am viewing this is definitely it. Watchable but nothing too taxing.

Bad sci-fi horror Government conspiracy rubbish.

[poolandrews · 2/10 · 5 May 2012]

The Terror Experiment is set in the city of Lafayette in Louisiana where a disillusioned war Vet manages to infiltrate a federal building & set off a bomb in a top secret bio-weapons research laboratory which causes a leak of a nerve gas which infects people & turns them into homicidal flesh eating killers. Everyone in the building below the sixth floor is infected as panic sweeps through the building, when the dust settles a handful of survivors are trapped on an upper floor including lowly mailman Loham (Lochlyn Munro), private investigator Mandy (Alicia Leigh Willis), minor employee Cale (Jason London) & a US marine named Tony (Edrick Browne) along with scientist Dr. Wexler (Robert Carradine) who seems to know a lot about what's happening. They must try to work together to find a way out & safety but with mindless killers inside the building & Government agents outside who want to blow the place up to contain the outbreak the odds & time is against them...

Executive produced & directed by George Mendeluk this was originally called Fight or Flight before the distributors changed it to The Terror Experiment & is a really bad, cheaply made clichéd ridden rip-off of several other much better films. The script is a bland mixture of the likes of 28 Days Later... (2002) with it's fast running virus infected who look & act like zombies, there's a bit of Die Hard (1988) here with the federal agents outside the closed off building & there's a scene of an exploding helicopter on the roof which feels directly lifted from the action flick & Quarantine (2008) with various people trapped in a building with zombies & there are other little scenes & ideas that are copied from all sorts of films. The Terror Experiment feels like a SyFy Channel film & that is most definitely not a compliment, the film lasts for just under 80 minutes & it's so dull & bland it feels a lot longer than that. The script tries to generate tension inside the building as the character's try to avoid being torn apart & outside as well with the hard decisions the men in charge have to make to destroy the place with survivors still inside but it drags, all the character's are paper thin so you don't care about them & there's never any sense or urgency or impending disaster. The ending is a damp squib as Cole & Mandy literally just walk out of the place & then there's a few minutes of badly written emotional drama as we are expected to reflect & think about Government conspiracies & those who have sacrificed their lives for us but it has zero impact. While watching The Terror Experiment I couldn't but help that I had seen it all before & it feels like some ninth generation rip-off, there's the usual stupidness too with the huge building seemingly only having one set of stairs, no containment plan or procedures in case of an emergency, a scene in which Mandy & Cole abseil down a flight of stair with a fire hose yet are jerked into the metal stairs & come to a gentle stop yet falling maybe thirty or forty feet straight down & a zombie who has a gun & every time the camera cuts to him he fires it but never seems to run out of bullets...

The Terror Experiment takes itself extremely seriously but the action & horror is lame with no scares or tension at all, I suppose there's no quick machine gun editing or jerky hand-held camcorder crap but that's about the best I can say about it. It's never explained why the virus makes those it infects look like rotting zombies but then I don't think the makers really cared. There's no real gore here & The Terror Experiment feels like it was made with a PG rating in mind, there are a few blood splatters but absolutely nothing else of note.

The IMDb says that this had a budget of about $5,000,000 which I think is total rubbish, there's no way a film this bad & this cheap looking would have cost that much, It's not as if there's an A-list cast here either but it does have some decent talent inboard with the likes of C. Thomas Howell (who looks bored), Judd Nelson, Jason London & Robert Carradine who all deliver bland performances.

The Terror Experiment is as bland & dull & clichéd a rip-off as there is out there, there's really nothing of any interest to horror or sci-fi or zombie fans. Don't waste 80 minutes of your time.

well whats to say

[woodsmen19 · 2/10 · 10 April 2012]

Well whats to say, this movie kept me entertained for awhile, the cgi, the explosions, and the acting, was hilarious, oh wait, its not a comedy...thats right it's supposed to be serious zombie flick, i give this one two thumbs down. The camera was too shaky i think they did that so they could camouflage the gun shots that you couldn't see, CGI was just horrible, I mean really the explosions just looked as fake as a some cartoons iv'e seen, not to forget shaking the camera to make it look like a bomb went off come on now have a little self respect, overall i gave this movie 2 votes out of 10, only because it actually made it to movie.

WOW Really?

[blubanshee · 1/10 · 10 May 2012]

I knew going in this movie would not be high budget and I like watching b type movies. This was not even worthy of a b rating. I could tell right away this was going to be real bad when the camera man has to use the camera to pull off effects by shaking it and using extreme blurry close ups that are way too fast. This piece of crap should have never even made it to DVD. I agree with what other said about the actors. There were a couple that I thought since they were in the movie. It couldn't be too bad. I was WRONG!............. Shame on anyone who is currently renting or selling this movie. I am a sucker for a good or half way good Zombie or Vampire movie. This movie was neither, even though they lead you to believe it was. They were like an infected rabid animal or something and not even a good one. The plot was bad the make up was bad and even the acting from a couple of seasoned actors. I hope they were roped into this movie and did not do it by choice. I think the budget on this film was a little over a million dollars. I know that's not a lot of money for a movie these days but I have seen decent horror movies made with a lot less and it turned out better than this. I suggest finding another movie and let this one die!

Resident Evil Ripoff

[ravynblackdgn · 1/10 · 28 April 2012]

This movie was awful, they discredited awesome actors with a Movie that in all reality was just a rip off of Resident Evil. Honestly when these actors read this script they must of been drugged to not see it. i hope they all got paid a lot of money to make such a B rated film like this one. I honestly do not see why the director even thought this was a good film. I swear is everyone in Hollywood getting Dumber every year? Please Hollywood stop trying to make Zombie movies, Resident Evil is good without all these cheap knockoff attempts. Good lord. if i see another Zombie movie i hope it is called Resident Evil, otherwise it'll get just as bad a Review as this one did for sure, Resident Evil is enough for zombies. make a new Vampire movie... and god not Twilight.

Routine zombie horror fare

[Woodyanders · 5/10 · 8 April 2015]

A deranged war veteran detonates a biological weapon inside a Federal building. Now quarantined and overflowing with ferocious rage-driven zombies, it's up to a small group of uninfected survivors on the top floor to figure a way out of the premises before it's too late.

While director George Mendeluk maintains a brisk pace throughout and stages the action set pieces with a reasonable amount of flair and skill, he crucially fails to generate any much-needed tension and only delivers a slight smidgen of gore. D. Todd Deeken's generic script staunchly adheres to a by-the-numbers hackneyed and predictable plot without adding anything fresh or surprising into the standard mix. Moreover, the acting is decidedly hit or miss: Jason London as the stalwart Cale, Alicia Leigh Willis as the tough Mandy, and Lochlyn Munro as noble firefighter Lohan all do their best with the trite material while C. Thomas Howell as the no-nonsense Chief Grosso, Robert Carradine as the sinister Dr. Wexler, and especially Judd Nelson as ruthless fed Agent Wilson all simply phone it in. Brad Reeb's sharp cinematography and the rattling score by Chris Thomas are both up to par. Passable, but overall pretty blah and unremarkable.

Try not to panic!

[RodrigAndrisan · 2/10 · 5 June 2017]

It's one character's replica and it's my motto too, especially in these times we live. A film with an unusual terrorist attack that takes me with the thought of the Japanese attack with Sarin in Tokyo in 1995. The terrorist here (well, he thinks he's a patriot...) says exactly what Donald Trump said before he became president : "We've got to take this country back!" But it is all about the detonation of the twin towers in New York in 2001, a little bit different. A pot of ideas and references in a weak, inconsistent film.

Yes, it is more terrible than it looks

[jordondave-28085 · 1/10 · 3 May 2023]

(2010) The Terror Experiment/ Fight or Flight POLITICAL HORROR THRILLER

Low budget straight-to-rental movie with C Thomas Howell and Judd Nelson in minor roles that has something to do with a militia man's personal grudge against the gov't by planting top secret government toxins on top of a government owned building so that he can unleash it for it's not quite revealed how he even obtained it in the first place. Once he unleashes the chemical toxins, they vaporize itself which upon breathing some can turn some into ghouls/ zombies. There's also a gov't cover-up theme to it which is absolutely nonsense. By looking at the big picture, it looks like that the movie was made in a week as a cash grab since some viewers will watch anything these days. I unfortunately happened catch this on one of those movie channels in which I was able to waste time recording it onto a recordable VHS and then use a fast forward button while playing before reusing the tape again by recording another movie. Bomb.