''State of Emergency'' is a 2011 American

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

written and directed by Turner Clay. It stars

Jay Hayden Jonathan Hayden (February 20, 1979), known professionally as Jay Hayden, is an American actor. He is best known for his work in the ABC comedy-drama series '' The Catch'' (2016–17) and the ''Grey's Anatomy'' spinoff ''Station 19'', both produce ...

, Tori White, Scott Lilly, and Kathryn Todd Norman as survivors of a neurotoxin quarantine who have to survive an assault by the infected.

Plot

After a chemical plant explodes, the military quarantines the surrounding area. Jim helplessly watches his girlfriend Emilie die of a wound sustained while trying to find safety, and he retreats to a farmhouse. Sporadic media reports indicate that the chemical plant may have stored biological weapons that are responsible for mutating people into rabid cannibals. He seeks help from the ubiquitous military helicopters that patrol the area, but it is to no avail. However, his efforts are noticed by survivors holed up nearby in a warehouse, and he joins them: Scott, Scott's wife Julie, and Ix, a quiet and unfriendly survivor that they had rescued. Ix initially snaps at Jim for inadvertently taking her candy and rejects his offers of friendship, but she slowly warms to him. Ix reveals that her failure to find a job or any friends in a new city led her to return home to live with her parents. There, she and her parents clashed over her lifestyle, and she stopped talking to them. Before she could apologize for her behavior, her parents died during the quarantine. Jim and Ix bond over their loneliness and feelings of loss, though Ix continues to keep her diabetes a secret from everyone. After she falls into a diabetic coma, Jim leaves the warehouse to find

insulin Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the ''INS'' gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism o ...

for her. Jim evades zombies and recovers insulin in emergency supplies airdropped by the military. When he returns to the warehouse, Jim saves Scott from a zombie attack. During the night, zombies break in the warehouse, and the survivors retreat upstairs into the offices. While clearing the warehouse, Jim discovers a squad of

Marines Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refle ...

, and they

tranquilize "Tranquilize" is a song by Las Vegas, Nevada, Las Vegas-based rock band the Killers, featuring Lou Reed. Written by Brandon Flowers, it is featured on the compilation album ''Sawdust (album), Sawdust''. The song was made available for downloa ...

him. He wakes up in an observation room, shackled to a chair. Through a glass window, a scientist explains to Jim that the chemical plant released a

neurotoxin Neurotoxins are toxins that are destructive to nerve tissue (causing neurotoxicity). Neurotoxins are an extensive class of exogenous chemical neurological insultsSpencer 2000 that can adversely affect function in both developing and mature ner ...

into the air that caused people to go homicidal, but tests reveal that Jim, Scott, Julie, and Ix are clean. The scientist apologizes to Jim and tells him that they're all free to go. After the group reunites, Jim and Ix embrace.

Cast

as Jim * Tori White as Ix * Scott Lilly as Scott * Kathryn Todd Norman as Julie * McKenna Jones as Emilie

Release

''State of Emergency'' premiere on October 5, 2011, at Raindance Film Festival. Image Entertainment released it on home video on April 16, 2013.

Reception

Mark L. Miller of

Ain't It Cool News Ain't It Cool News (AICN) is an entertainment news website founded by Harry Knowles and run by his sister Dannie Knowles since September 2017, dedicated to news, rumors, and reviews of upcoming and current films, television, and comic book proje ...

wrote that the film is highly reminiscent of ''

28 Days Later ''28 Days Later'' is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover the accidental release of a highly contagi ...

'', but there are enough good scenes and performances by the actors to make up for it. David Maine of Pop Matters rated it 5/10 stars and said that the technical aspects were impressive, but the acting was at times weak. In a mixed review, ''Electric Sheep Magazine'' stated that the film is too straightforward to stand out in such a saturated subgenre.

References

External links