A group of 80 people are ripped out of their daily lives and all re-appear in an undisclosed location. These people are from all walks of life: young and old, athletic and disabled, white-collared and homeless. The rules to a race boom in their heads, in their own voice and language, laying out what will become a horrific race of terror: “If you are lapped twice, you die. If you step off the path, you die. If you touch the grass, you will die”. Race...or die.
Filled with fine performances, splattery effects and an electrifying out-of-nowhere third-act twist that pushes Hough's feature debut into instant cult status.
Most of the characters are either types or anonymous bodies in motion... but the handful with backstories are well played by a cast composed largely of actors with respectable and diverse TV and indie-movie credits.
Instead of a grandly ghoulish dash for survival, the movie revels in ghastly behavior with a mouthbreathing concentration that's as irritating as it is worthless.
Though the dialogue is pretty basic and the narrative dots don't always quite connect, "The Human Race," in its own gutsy, grindhouse-movie way, manages style, vision and tension.
The Human Race, a dreary, smeary, low-low-budget but even lower-inspiration horror flick, is likely to leave viewers rueing the craven, disappointing species into which they were born.
