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Family Faces Zombie Apocalypse In 'What We Become'

What We Become is a Danish zombie flick in which no zombies are seen for most of the tense, 80-minute movie. Instead, filmmaker Bo Mikkelsen focuses on how a small family fares during the first few days of the viral outbreak and the collapse of civil society. While hardcore zombie fans might find some of the genre details here so familiar as to be annoying, those not immersed in the killer corpse scene may see What We Become as a slow-burning thriller with a sharp psychological edge.

What Mikkelsen does well here is show people not afraid of the monstrous, but of the unknown. The film's first shot is of an ashen-looking woman in a bedroom. She's got dark circles under her eyes and a child in her arms. She screams in terror as someone she knows bursts into the room. From this grim start, which tells us things are going to go horribly wrong, we're introduced to a seemingly typical middle-class family in suburban Copenhagen.

The woman mentioned above is the mother, Pernille (played by a powerful Mille Dinesen). She's the matriarch of the family while her husband, Dino (Troels Lyby), is the kindly, if somewhat nerdy, father. The couple has two kids: a little girl, Maj (Ella Solgaard), and a rebellious teenage boy, Gustav (Behamin Engell). The teenager is contemptuous of all rules, and seems bored of everything that doesn't have to do with the cute girl who just moved in across the street. Not even a zombie apocalypse could stop him from thinking of her. Life, in short, seems good. However, it goes to hell quickly after an elderly neighbor reports that her husband passed away but no one can find his body.

Soon, soldiers in full body armor and Hazmat suits are patrolling the once idyllic streets. Families are ordered to stay in their homes, which authorities cover with black plastic. Shots are heard in the night. On the TV, news anchors report that scientists are working towards a cure. But for what? No other information about the disease is given, and the death toll goes noticeably unmentioned. As the atmosphere grows ever-more claustrophobic, Dino tries to convince his family (and himself) that authorities have this under control. Meanwhile, everyone seems to know that safety is an illusion.

This is the central horror of the story, even though the flesh-eating corpses eventually make an appearance in the film's explosive ending. For although the family does, in a way, band together for survival, they are not transformed into heroes or brain-smashing brawlers. Moreover, the moral decisions common in zombie fiction – such as killing loved ones to prevent them from turning – simply destroy these characters. These are the people -- the normal, modern people -- who fail to pass the extreme survivalist test. As such, What We Become is the zombie story of the Everyman, those who don't make it.

What We Become is playing at the St. Anthony Main Theatre.

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