Review: This Is Not a Test Blends Teen Trauma With Fast-Moving Zombie Chaos

Teen survivors fortify a high school gym as infected hordes close in during This Is Not a Test.

Adam MacDonald has never been afraid of throwing his characters into the wilderness and letting the emotional fallout bleed into the horror. With This Is Not a Test, adapted from Courtney Summers’ bestselling novel, he trades forests and isolated cabins for a high school gymnasium under siege — and once again asks what survival really means when the world collapses.

The setup is familiar on paper. A fast-moving zombie outbreak sends a group of high schoolers scrambling for shelter, barricading themselves inside their school gym. The undead outside aren’t the slow, shambling relics of decades past. These creatures move with a 28 Days Later-style urgency — frantic, aggressive, relentless. The apocalypse hits quickly, and MacDonald wastes little time getting us into the chaos.

At the center of it all is Sloane, played by Olivia Scriven, a teenager already carrying more emotional weight than most adults. She’s dealing with the aftermath of an abusive home life and the absence of her sister Lily, who left to escape their volatile father. When the outbreak hits, Sloane’s internal despair collides with external catastrophe. The gym becomes more than a temporary shelter; it becomes a pressure cooker for unresolved trauma, ego clashes and fragile teenage alliances.

That’s where This Is Not a Test distinguishes itself — and occasionally stumbles. Like the novel, the film leans heavily into character interiority. The zombies are terrifying, but the story is equally concerned with what abandonment, grief and hopelessness do to young people already on the brink. The group dynamic feels authentic in flashes, particularly in the way loyalties shift and resentments simmer. Carson MacCormac, Kourtney Moore and Chloe Avriken round out the ensemble with performances that feel grounded, even when the script accelerates past deeper exploration.

Still, there’s an ongoing tension between urgency and reflection. When the undead are literally clawing at the doors, the film often pauses for emotional reckoning. Those quiet beats are understandable from a narrative standpoint, but they sometimes blunt the momentum. Zombie stories thrive on sustained dread. When the tension spikes, it needs to stay elevated. Video games like Resident Evil understand this rhythm — once the chase begins, the pulse doesn’t drop. Here, the pacing occasionally surrenders that adrenaline in favor of character contemplation.

Visually, MacDonald delivers enough chaos to satisfy genre fans. The infected are vicious, the violence immediate. Some of the camerawork leans shakier than necessary, but the overall aesthetic fits the frantic tone. The gym setting, though limited, becomes a believable microcosm of teenage survival politics.

What makes the film resonate most is its emotional undercurrent. YA horror is often labeled separately, but in practice it’s simply horror through a teenage lens. The fears are no less valid. If anything, they’re heightened. This Is Not a Test understands that for some kids, the apocalypse isn’t a sudden event — it’s just a continuation of the instability they already know.

MacDonald doesn’t reinvent the zombie wheel, nor does he attempt to evolve the genre beyond what audiences have seen in recent years. Instead, he roots the horror in personal despair. It’s emo in tone, introspective in structure, and more interested in the psychology of survival than the mythology of infection.

The result is a solid, watchable entry in a genre that’s notoriously difficult to refresh. It doesn’t fully capture the nonstop, breathless terror that a scenario like this promises, but it delivers enough intensity and emotional grounding to stand on its own. For zombie fans, especially those hungry for character-driven apocalypse stories, this one earns its place.

We’re giving This Is Not a Test a 3 out of 5 at Horror Movies Uncut. The undead are still running. The teens are still spiraling. And in 2026, even the apocalypse feels a little emotional.