Horror Movie Review: Office Uprising (2018)

Desperately wanting to be the office version of Shaun of the Dead but being more like a poor parody of the comedic horror classic. Office Uprising is a horror comedy directed by Lin Oeding and written by Peter Gamble Robinson and Ian Shorr. It stars Brenton Thwaites, Jane Levy, Alan Ritchson, Zachary Levi, Karan Soni and Ian Harding.

Ammotech is one of the world’s leading weapons manufacturers, although with employees like Desmond, it’s hard to believe they lead in anything. Brenton Thwaites plays the slacker, who spends his days avoiding his boss, Adam (Zachary Levi) and designing his mobile game.

After a run-in with the R&D part of the company, Desmond decides to purposely lose an important order form and heads home to finish a report that is due the next day. Unfortunately, he’s a slacker and instead plays ‘real-life’ Mario Kart with his friends in the alleyway. Waking up the next day to find his report filled with hundreds of errors and no time to finish it.

Rushing to work and trying to keep a low-profile he fails to see the bodies and blood littering the hallways and offices. Remember that excellent sequence in Shaun of the Dead where Shaun walks from his house to the local shop completely unaware that the dead litter the street? Office Uprising is just a poor copy of that.

Completely oblivious to the chaos, it’s not until Adam attacks him over the poor report that Desmond realises things are wrong. The entire building has descended into chaos as most of the workers have become raging psychopaths.

The cause? It seems to be linked to the energy drink ‘Zolt’ that they’ve all been consuming. Desmond, along with his crush Samantha (Jane Levy) and friend/co-worker, Mourad (Karan Soni) have to get out but the building has gone into lockdown.

It sounds fun, it should be fun but it’s not because it’s all been done before. As I’ve said several times already, swap out the ‘psycho’ angle for ‘zombies’ and it’s even more familiar. It’s a shame though because it could have been funny and clever. The idea of the rag-tag group having to make their way through floors dealing with inter-office drama heightened by psychosis. It does try to do that but always fails to raise a smile, let alone a laugh. Nowhere is that failure better exemplified then when they reach HR and use the woman’s gossipy nature against them.

A lot of the faults with Office Uprising lies at the feet of the characters. Not the actors though, as they do the best they can. Desmond is every slacker ever who must rise up and be the hero. Mourad is every nerd ever who gets a moment to shine at the end of the film. Samantha is there to be won over by Desmond come the end (which she does). That would be less offensive if the pair had chemistry, but they don’t. Their big kiss coming across forced and wholly unnecessary.

The only character who vaguely stands out is Levi’s Adam, playing the villainous boss with a fair bit of intensity at first. Before descending into a cheesy super-villain by the end. It’s not much but it’s better than everyone else.

Office Uprising can’t even be recommended for gore, as while it has plenty of blood, it’s all done in a very cartoony and slapstick way. So, it’s not funny even though it tries. It has got awful characters and clichés. It’s not interesting and not in anyway original even if it thinks it is. Simply put, this is a bad movie. Just watch Shaun of the Dead instead.