"Extinction: Why Were the Zombies So Bad at Being Zombies?

 "Extinction: Why Were the Zombies So Bad at Being Zombies?

by:

Virgilio F. De Leon Jr., MD

Extinction is a family drama with a little bit of mutated zombies thrown into the mix.

And because I have somehow managed to watch almost every zombie movie and series available on Netflix, I finally got around to watching this one.

And, well…

I’m not really sure if it was because I was sleep-deprived and getting increasingly annoyed with the pacing, or if the movie genuinely needed a lot more zombie screen time.

The story follows three survivors of a zombie apocalypse, almost a decade after they narrowly escaped death.

One of them is a baby who has now grown into a nine-year-old girl.

Don't ask me how she managed to survive the apocalypse all those years ago. I assume milk was not exactly the first item on everyone's survival checklist.

Anyway, she is now nine years old and hopelessly bored with how carefully her “Daddy” has protected her from the outside world.

And this brings me back to something I have always found fascinating about young people:

They have absolutely no imagination of how terrible the world can be.

This nine-year-old wants to see the world.

Well, kid…

You're about to see it.

The third member of their little survivor group runs a radio station in the middle of their small town, conveniently located right across the street from the other two.

And he is the first person to encounter the mutated White zombies.

Which brings me to my first question:

How exactly did the zombies mutate into these things?

They look like something that wandered out of A Quiet Place—completely blind and heavily dependent on their hearing to hunt.

I mean, sure. It's a zombie apocalypse. I'm willing to accept a certain amount of scientific nonsense.

But I would still like to know how we got from regular zombies to alien-looking creatures with super-hearing.

And more importantly:

Why didn't they attack the row of houses?

These creatures can obviously hunt during the day, so why are these people somehow living in a relatively peaceful little neighborhood while these things are apparently roaming around?

Then there is Peter, who runs the radio station.

Peter likes to blast loud music at night.

Very loud music.

Which makes me wonder how the White zombies weren't constantly drawn toward the radio station.

We already see that when just one of these things captures something, it can apparently make enough noise to attract the others.

So Peter is sitting there broadcasting loud music all night, and somehow the zombies are like:

“Nah. That's probably nothing.”

Just reasons.

Then, weirdly enough, the movie shifts back into family drama.

The three survivors eventually encounter a fourth survivor, a pregnant woman who has somehow survived an attack by the Whites.

And, unfortunately, that is pretty much her role in the movie.

She panics.

She tells them what happened.

She panics some more.

And then she continues being pregnant while everyone else deals with the actual plot.

To be fair, she does survive the movie.

Peter does not.

And this is where we finally discover that Peter was actually the girl's biological father.

Apparently, nine years earlier, he had killed his wife when she was about to turn into a zombie.

So his sacrifice at the end is supposed to be his redemption.

Outnumbered and cornered, Peter deliberately draws the White zombies toward himself so the other three can escape in a truck.

And here we reach another important question.

Was the truck silent?

Because I don't think trucks are particularly famous for being quiet.

Peter is making himself into a giant zombie magnet while the others drive away in a truck that presumably makes a considerable amount of noise.

So why weren't the zombies following them?

Did they suddenly decide:

“You know what? We've had enough excitement for tonight.”

Just reasons.

Eventually, the movie ends with the survivors looking out toward the coast, with the future still uncertain.

The nine-year-old seems happy.

She finally gets to see the world outside the little bubble her father had created for her.

And I suppose that is the point.

The movie is ultimately about survival, family, guilt, sacrifice, and the desire to see what lies beyond the walls that have protected you.

Which is actually a pretty decent premise.

Unfortunately, I spent a significant portion of the movie wondering why the zombies weren't attacking things that were making extremely obvious zombie-attracting noises.

Maybe I was too tired.

Maybe I was expecting too much.

Or maybe after watching approximately every zombie movie Netflix has ever thrown at me, I have developed unreasonable expectations about zombie behavior.

But as I sat there watching the credits roll, I could only think:

I am 49 years old.

I have survived adulthood, medicine, responsibilities, traffic, and apparently an entire Netflix catalog of zombie movies.

And after all that…

I think Extinction was the thing that finally killed me.

Not the zombies.

The pacing.