Horror Film Review: This Is Not a Test (2025)

If you’re going to tackle a zombie horror these days, you need something fresh. Look at what Black Summer did in a market already overflowing with zombie lore: urgency, terror, impossible choices to survive. This Is Not a Test, set in the opening days of a zombie apocalypse, promised a sharp, emotional story about an abused teen and the slow awakening of a survival instinct after years of wishing she was dead.

Olivia Holt stars as Sloane, a traumatised teenager trapped in an abusive home when a violent zombie outbreak brings chaos to her town. She escapes her father and falls in with a group of classmates, eventually taking refuge inside their high school. It’s messy, brutal and chaotic, but This Is Not a Test seems to be trying to position itself as a cut above.

It’s a powerful concept based on the novel by Courtney Summers, a major YA author whose work should have translated into something far more impactful on screen. But it never does. I didn’t see it and, more importantly, I didn’t feel it. The best zombie films and series get under your skin. They create a mood, a lingering sense of dread that sticks with you long after the credits roll. I first fell for the genre with Open Grave, and that whole film was pure mood.

This Is Not a Test had no mood.

A lot of the problem comes down to telling rather than showing. We’re told Sloane is suicidal, that her father is abusive, that her sister left home. We see some of the abuse. Logically, it makes sense why a teen would feel hopeless. But that’s not work my brain should be doing. The film should have done that work for me.

The same applies when Sloane meets the other survivors and they move to the high school. We know some of these teens aren’t in the best headspace, but none of it really lands. This is the opening day of a zombie apocalypse after all. They’ve all already lost someone.

I expected more from these rising teen stars, but the film never gives them enough depth or direction. Froy Gutierrez (Rhys), Corteon Moore (Cary), Chloe Avakian (Grace) and Carson MacCormac (Trace) all feel like they’re trying to do what they can with thin material, especially when the film never even bothers to properly explain what caused the apocalypse.

I rarely dislike a zombie film, especially one leaning into gritty, emotional territory rather than comedy. But I felt nothing here, much like Sloane did at the start.

This is the second Olivia Holt film I’ve rated one star, the first being Heart Eyes. At this point, I’m starting to think she’s just not my cup of tea.

If you’ve made it this far reading because you too were disappointed, I’m sorry. But I can wholeheartedly recommend anything in the Walking Dead universe, or Z Nation and Black Summer.

For promising and failing to deliver a hard-hitting zombie apocalypse horror based on the work of the excellent Courtney Summers, I give This Is Not a Test one out of five stars.

★☆☆☆☆

A Shudder Exclusive Film, This Is Not a Test Premieres Exclusively on Shudder and AMC+ Friday 22 May 2026

Trailer: This Is Not a Test, dir. Adam MacDonald

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Suzanne Collins's 'The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes' (Hunger Games #0) - Audiobook Review ★☆☆☆☆

I'm absolutely stunned by how bad Suzanne Collin's The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is: it's dire.

For the most part, I loved the Hunger Games trilogy although I did hate the ending. I cautiously looked forward to the prequel because I thought that there was a lot to say about how Panem became the twisted society it was. Given how low my expectations were, I'm surprised at how sorely disappointed I am.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is about the evolution of Coriolanus Snow, how he falls in love with a tribute he is mentoring and how he chooses to become the disgusting excuse for a human being we see in the trilogy. Coriolanus as an 18-year-old is absolutely insufferable and I'm quite sure that this wasn't a story that needed to be told.

The romance with his tribute, Lucy, is vomit-inducing and at no stage does the author attempt to unpack the huge moral implications and the imbalance of power between a privileged, spoiled young man of the leading class and a disenfranchised young woman, effectively a slave, who has been stripped of her rights, treated like an animal and chosen to die.

I couldn't help comparing Lucy to June in the Hulu version of The Handmaid's Tale. June realises what little power she has but chooses to use and manipulate the Commander. She certainly doesn't fall in love with him.

I'm an audiobook lover but to add insult to injury, I really disliked the narrator of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Santino Fontana's 'female' voices sounded like parody and his rendition of Lucy's songs fell completely flat. Perhaps, given the substantial dialogue of women in the book (especially Lucy), a female narrator should have been chosen?

Ultimately, I find myself wondering who authors are writing young adult novels for. A huge proportion of YA readers are adults, me included, but if you're not writing a book that has something relevant to say to actual young adults, what is the point? I felt the same way when I read Sara Zarr's Goodbye from Nowhere. In both novels, we have a pampered, narcissistic protagonist who basically preys on a woman who trusts him, yet somehow the whole story is about him?

I give The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes one out of five stars and would not recommend. I've just realised that this is my first one star review ever. It's that bad. Did this review need to be written? I very rarely take the time to write bad reviews but this is for the people who feel the same way as I do.

★☆☆☆☆

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Book Review: Fallen by Lauren Kate

Some lessons have to be learned the hard way, lessons such as “don’t ever fall in love with a fallen angel” and “never, ever judge a book by its cover”.  I made that mistake recently.  I noticed the hype brewing up around Lauren Kate’s Fallen, I fell in love with the cover of the book, and I bought it without so much as reading the back cover.  I feel I should mention that I had a fair idea of what I thought I was getting myself into.  I recently had to read quite a heavy tome in the course of my studies and I was looking for a light, romantic fantasy like The Twilight Saga or House of Night series.

Of course, you can guess where this is leading: I was sorely disappointed.  Let’s start with what the book got right.  Books set in boarding schools are as popular as ever and we’re often treated to perfect, sleek and shiny campuses such as Hogwarts, St. Vladimir's Academy, and the House of Night.  What I liked about the Sword & Cross reform school was its rust, weeds, cemetery and general state of disrepair.  It was fitting that a school for misfits should be as dysfunctional as the students themselves.

I liked that the various characters were described and introduced in such a way that I was able to easily remember who they were without having to flip back and forwards through the book. 

What I really didn’t like about this book was that the fantasy portion of the book was so undeveloped that it might as well have been absent.  Apart from telling us that the book is about angels, the mythology and canon of angels, demons and watchers was not tackled whatsoever.  In fact, if every reference to Daniel being an angel was replaced by him being a cardboard cut-out of a boy, and every mention of Luce’s strange shadows was replaced by mention of her valuable stamp collection, I honestly believe it would have added as much to the story as the supposed presence of angels and demons did.

So, in Fallen, protagonist Lucinda Price arrives at the Sword & Cross reform school in Georgia following a terrifying incident where her shadows appear to kill a boy.  She meets two boys named Cam and Daniel.  Because readers of romantic fiction are a bit dim, Cam is helpfully described as being dark haired and green eyed (evil) and Daniel has blonde hair that cascades around his face like a halo, framing his blue eyes perfectly (good).  

Cam is charming, handsome and definitely interested in Luce so that is obviously a slight turn-off for her.  Daniel is rude, arrogant and flips Luce the bird the first time she sees him so she finds herself strangely attracted to him.  Of course.

I’m being slightly unfair at this point, I know.  I struggled to get into the story at first because it is quite descriptive in the opening chapters and not a lot happens.  It turns out that that level of description does aid the atmosphere and character development mentioned above, so ultimately that is a good thing.  I found the middle of the book to be quite enjoyable and I could see how Daniel’s hot and cold treatment of Luce have both attracted her and challenged her to find out more about him.

What fails Fallen the most is the closing chapters and lack of depth.  The story gets quite chilling and frightening in the middle of the book with a fire at the school in which one of Luce’s classmates perishes.  However, as the story progressed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this book was actually quite terrible.  It felt as if the author was saying that Daniel is a fallen angel, now go look that up on Wikipedia.  There is no mention whatsoever of the mythology and story behind that. 
I spent a lot of time whining about the Twilight Saga but even that includes a pretty strong narrative about vampires, werewolves, Volturi and immortal children.  A lot of time is spent exploring the vampires’ lives before joining the family of Carlisle Cullen, including the events leading up to their deaths.  There is very little of that in Fallen and in the end,when you find out that Luce and Daniel have repeated this cycle for millennia, the natural reaction is so what?

Many books stumble over attempts to set the scene when they are the first in a series.  This is not one of them.  After finishing this book and reading both the first chapter of the next book and summaries on Wikipedia, I realise that answers are still not provided by the end of the third novel which makes this a very shallow, weak series.  I can say quite happily that I will certainly not be continuing with this series and I am sorry I bought the book. 
For a couple of entertaining chapters in the middle, I give this book 1 out of 5 stars.

If you really insist on buying Fallen, you can do so at Amazon.co.uk ¦ Amazon.com

Otherwise, leave a comment and I might be inclined to send you my copy if I haven’t used it for fire wood by then.

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Blu-ray review: The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

The Men Who Stare at Goats was meant to be the hilarious film that blew the lid off a top-secret wing of the US military that harnessed paranormal abilities in the fight against its enemies.  There was no way that an all-star cast of Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges could go wrong and the ensemble cast should have ensured first class comedy for the discerning movie fan.  It is no surprise the that I had high expectations of the film and was really looking forward to seeing it but I have to say that The Men Who Stare at Goats just didn’t work for me at all.

Click on any of the photos for full resolution stills. 

Ewan McGregor is Bob Wilton, a reporter from Ann Arbor.  The film begins with him interviewing Gus Lacey, an ex-military man who claims to have been in a secret unit that investigated psychic abilities.  Wilton brands Lacey as crazy and soon forgets about him. When a colleague at the paper suddenly dies and his wife leaves him for his one-armed editor, Wilton leaves for Kuwait in a fit of anger hoping to get into Iraq during the Gulf War.  In Kuwait, he meets Lyn Cassady (played by George Clooney) and remembers his name from his interview with Gus Lacey.  Cassady was in the secret unit, known as the “Jedi Warriors” and he soon reveals that they were involved in a host of paranormal activities including cloud bursting, remote viewing and walking through walls.

I usually love films about the paranormal and have no problem stretching my imagination and suspending disbelief but The Men Who Stare at Goats is not about that.  It is a slapstick comedy about supposedly real life events and a bizarre plan to end war as we know it.  I hesitate to compare one film to another but The Men Who Stare at Goats seems to try so hard to be a Coen brother film complete with dream sequences, weird animals and endless dialogue but it ultimately fails to deliver.  It is really hard to buy into some greater moral message when a film deteriorates so severely into the silly and ridiculous.

Featuring desert vistas, the jungles of Vietnam and the streets of urban, war torn Iraq, The Men Who Stare at Goats is perfect for the Blu-ray format and features an impressive MPEG-4 AVC 1080p video quality.  The visuals are great and are no doubt aided by the excellent costume design and makeup as the story flits between the 1980s and the present day.  The Blu-ray also features Dolby TrueHD 5.1. audio which I sometimes prefer over the currently favored DTS-HD Master Audio.  The audio certainly coped with the various transitions between dialogue, music and action scenes and picked up on some impressive aspects of the scenery.

The Blu-ray release features commentary tracks with director Grant Heslov and author Jon Ronson.  It also includes two featurettes which delve into the truth behind the story and the real events upon which the film is based.  They are 'Goats' Declassified: The Real Men of the First Earth Battalion and Project "Hollywood": A Classified Report From the Set.  In many ways these featurettes are more interesting than the film itself.  The final feature is a set of character bios which takes a look at the main characters in the film.

I really wish The Men Who Stare at Goats had been better but I don’t think that it was high expectations that ruined the film.  What a disappointment!  I give the film 1 out of 5 stars for good cinematography and video quality.

Buy The Men Who Stare at Goats from Amazon.co.uk and receive free delivery anywhere in the UK.

Photos courtesy of © BBC Films / Momentum Pictures

Article first published as Blu-ray Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats on Blogcritics.

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Book Review: Walk Like You Have Somewhere to Go by Lucille O'Neal

Walk Like You Have Somewhere to Go: From Mental Welfare to Mental Health by Lucille O'Neal is meant to be an uplifting story about how a woman came from the humblest beginnings to become mother of one of the greatest sports stars that ever set foot on earth – Shaquille O’Neal.  It is never pleasant to have to write a negative review but unfortunately, I found this book to be almost devoid of redeeming characteristics.  The problem with the book is twofold and had to do with that “humble” upbringing and Lucille’s interpretation of the events in her life.

Lucille O’Neal came from a relatively privileged middle-class background.  Her parents split up when she was young and her grandparents were extremely cold but that does not amount to an impoverished or deprived childhood.  Having encountered impoverished children and families in urban and rural settings, in both so-called first and third world countries, I found Lucille’s self-indulgent and exaggerated focus on her unhappy childhood to be beyond grating.  Many children across many cultures experienced a coldness and lack of moral support while growing up in the 50s and 60s and many of them grew up to provide healthy and loving environments for their children nevertheless. 

Part of the purpose of an autobiography is for the author to revisit the events in her life and the decisions she made and to pass a mature analysis and judgement on her past.  It is not enough to simply report the events in her life; she needs to explain the significance of those events and her decisions and how these helped her to grow and become a better person.  The problem is that Lucille has not done this.  She may be a fantastic and inspiring public speaker (and she is) but I did not feel that she transferred those qualities into this book. 

She describes falling pregnant as a teenager; holding endless dinner parties at her home; slipping into alcoholism as an adult and eventually leaving her husband as linear events.  She portrays them alternatively as the products of cold and dissatisfying close relationships or situations engineered for her by God but she never once takes ownership of her actions nor does she accept responsibility for her decisions.  It is a real pity actually because I think there is a story to tell here but I don’t think Lucille has sufficiently moved past the events in her life to be able to pass wisdom through the written medium in the way that her charisma and personality do when she speaks.

I give Walk Like You Have Somewhere to Go: From Mental Welfare to Mental Health one out of five stars and unfortunately would not recommend this book.

I obtained a copy of this book to review through the BookSneeze programme.  All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Article first published as Book Review: Walk Like You Have Somewhere to Go: From Mental Welfare to Mental Health by Lucille O'Neal on Blogcritics.

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