Outside is a Filipino Netflix family drama zombie horror film… and it really needed one of those descriptors removed to make this 2hr 20min flick work. Yes… another 2+ hour horror film… some work, others don’t. Guess which one this is.

The film takes place after the zombie apocalypse has popped off and a family is escaping in their damaged mini-van. They find their way to an abandoned manor where they sometimes fight zombies but more often fight each other.

Yes, this flick is a family drama disguised as a zombie film. Once they hit the half-way mark, the flick basically forgets about the zombies so it can be a cantankerous family melodrama where dear papa wants full control but his wife and kids want freedom.

These are mid-speed zombies that have the curious habit of talking… perhaps just repeating the last words they said before changing. Or not. I’m not really sure because the movie isn’t really about the zombies and we never see the start of the outbreak nor does anyone really remark upon them.

But we know all about the family arguments and sniping and angry bits. And I’m sure that extensive scenes of bickering make the actors happy that they get to flex their thespian muscles… but it gets pretty old, pretty quick.

If they’d done the responsible thing and cut a half hour of this flick – mostly the arguments – they might have had a perfectly ok one of these. But they didn’t and there’s a point where there’s a full movie runtime remaining and its pretty clear its all going to be walled into a house with a bickering family. Not super enthralling. There are easily much worse zombie flicks to avoid but there’s also so much better.

Score: 74