If you’ve been keeping up with Grave Tone, you already know that Arthur has a certain… affinity for zombie movies. Meaghan would probably call it a condition.
Arthur would call it a perfectly reasonable love of a genre. Either way, the two of them just got back from the theater for the newly released Canadian zombie film This Is Not a Test, and they’ve got a lot to say.
Based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Canadian author Courtney Summers, this adaptation hit screens in their area on February 27, though some territories apparently had it as early as the 20th. Distribution is weird. We get it.
So, is it worth your time? We dig into all of it: the book-to-film comparison, the characters, the themes, the 1990s vibes that absolutely no one was fully expecting, and whether fast zombies will ever stop being terrifying. Spoilers are clearly marked, so stick with us.
Courtney Summers, the Novel, and a Bonus Novella
Before we get into the film itself, it’s worth talking about the source material because Meaghan actually read the book, which meant we got a real, side-by-side comparison this episode. Courtney Summers is a Canadian author who primarily writes in the young adult space, and her work tends to lean into thriller and horror territory. Her more recent titles, like Sadie and The Project, have brought her wider attention, but This Is Not a Test was originally published in 2012.
The version Meaghan picked up in January 2026 was actually a re-release, likely timed with the film’s arrival, and it includes a bonus novella called Please Remain Calm, which Summers wrote in 2015 or 2016 as a follow-up. That novella picks up almost immediately after the original story ends and shifts the narrator from Sloane to Rhys, one of the key characters. For the record, the novella does not factor into the movie at all, but it does add a layer to the story’s ending that helps complete the emotional arc in a way the film handles differently.
One thing that carries across from the page to the screen is Summers’ signature focus on mental health, trauma, and heavier subject matter. Her characters are not just people reacting to extreme circumstances. They’re people who were already carrying a lot before things went sideways, and that weight follows them. It’s something we both appreciated seeing acknowledged in the film, even if the book gives it considerably more space.
What This Is Not a Test Is Actually About
Okay, yes, the IMDb description for this movie is genuinely terrible. It literally just says the film follows Sloane and four other students who take shelter in their high school during a zombie outbreak. As Arthur put it, “It instantly reminded me of the banner from The Office. It is your birthday.” The movie is better than that. Much better.
Our main character is Sloane, played by Olivia Holt, best known to horror fans from her lead role in Heart Eyes last year. Sloane is a teenager living in a small town called Cortege, and when a zombie outbreak tears through the area, she ends up banding together with a small group of classmates she knows, but doesn’t know well.
That group includes Rhys, played by Froy Gutierrez, who becomes one of the more important characters in Sloane’s story; Cary, played by Corteon Moore, a slightly older former student who positions himself as a reluctant leader; and siblings Trace and Grace, played by Carson MacCormac and Chloe Avakian. They’re twins in the book, which honestly makes their names make a lot more sense.
What separates this from a standard zombie-in-a-school setup is Sloane herself. She was already struggling before the outbreak. Her relationship with her father is abusive, her sister Lily had run off without a word, and she was dealing with serious suicidal ideation. The zombie apocalypse doesn’t erase any of that.
In a strange way, it forces her to keep moving forward when she had been considering not doing that at all. It grounds the story. It gives you a reason to care about what happens to her beyond just surviving the next zombie attack.
Spoiler Zone: Book vs. Film, Characters, and What Changed
You have been warned. Spoilers from here on out.
One of the most interesting conversations we had this episode was about how the film and the novel handle the same story differently, and why some of those changes make sense while others left Meaghan feeling like something was missing.
In the novel, we start in the school right away, and the story of how the group got there is filled in through flashbacks. The film shows you the chaos in sequence, letting you watch Sloane escape her father’s house as he’s being attacked and fall in with the group organically. We both agreed that the choice probably works better for a general audience. The flashback structure of the book is effective, but starting in the action gives the film an immediate momentum that is hard to argue with. “If two minutes in and you’re getting attacked, it’s awesome,” Arthur said. He’s not wrong.
The tension between Trace and Cary, which is a recurring thread in the book, is handled more briefly in the film. In the novel, Trace blames Cary for not spotting the zombies that ultimately attacked and overwhelmed their parents during their escape. That blame resurfaces again and again throughout the story, keeping the group dynamic on edge.
In the movie, the argument happens once and is essentially dropped. Meaghan noticed the difference. “The tension was lacking a little bit in the movie,” she said, though she also acknowledged that at roughly an hour and a half, there just isn’t time to revisit every conflict.
A few other significant details shifted in adaptation. In the book, Sloane’s sister Lily disappears without any warning or goodbye. She simply vanishes, leaving Sloane completely in the dark and alone with their abusive father. In the film, Sloane is at least aware that Lily was planning to leave, which softens the abandonment considerably.
Cary also knew about Lily and feels genuine guilt about not telling Sloane sooner, a detail that adds some texture to his character in the novel but gets trimmed down in the film. The physical relationship between Cary and Grace, which in the book reads as two scared people reaching for distraction rather than any kind of real connection, is given a slightly sweeter gloss in the movie.
The subplot around Sloane’s mental health is present in the film but noticeably lighter than in the book. In the novel, there are multiple moments where she considers going outside during the outbreak, not to escape, but to stop having to try. Rhys pulls her back from one of those moments in a scene that lands hard. The film communicates her struggle differently. She throws away her suicide note.
She withdraws from the group when things get loud. The film frames her arc as one of gradual, tentative hope, which feels more resolved than where the novel leaves things. The novel’s ending is considerably more ambiguous and bleak. Meaghan was glad that Please Remain Calm was right there to follow it up. The film lands somewhere warmer, and both approaches feel true to who Sloane is. They just make different choices about what you leave the audience with.
Mr. Baxter, played by Luke Macfarlane, turns up in the school mid-story having snuck in on his own and refusing to explain how. The reason, of course, is that he’s been bitten and does not want the group to know what that means for him. “He was scared and weird at the same time,” Arthur said, and Macfarlane really does carry that dread well.
Also, the rule still stands: in a zombie apocalypse, you check everyone for bite marks. It is common sense.
What We Liked (And What Held It Back)
Arthur rated the film around a six and a half. Meaghan landed closer to a five. Their reasons are pretty telling.
For Arthur, the biggest wins were the pacing and the energy. The film does not waste your time. It pulls you into the chaos immediately and keeps you there. The zombies are fast and genuinely scary in the way that only newly turned, fully intact, sprinting-at-you zombies can be. He drew a comparison to 28 Days Later in terms of that raw, immediate threat. The characters also behave like actual teenagers trying their best rather than horror movie idiots walking straight into danger for no reason. That matters more than it sounds. Every time a character makes a stupid decision in a horror film, it pulls you out of the experience. This one mostly kept us in it.
For Meaghan, the performances were the standout. The cast was committed and grounded, and they worked well together even when the script did not give them as much room as the novel does. She also loved the small town setting and what it does for the atmosphere. There’s an intimacy to a zombie story set in a place with no frills, no skyline, and no crowd of strangers to get lost in.
“There’s something about the small town setting that creates that level of isolation“
The film was shot in Hamilton, Ontario, and directed by Adam McDonald, who was born in Montreal. It’s very, very Canadian, and that works entirely in its favor.
One genuine delight that neither of us fully expected: the movie is set in the 1990s. The wardrobe, the music, those little plastic choker necklaces that briefly ruled the world, and one Nokia-era phone that gets dropped and then found two days later with a full battery and not a scratch on it. As Arthur pointed out, “That’s what the old nineties phones were good for. Now you leave your phone discharged for a day and you’re at 10%.” It’s a small thing, but it adds texture and gives the film a fun, nostalgic energy on top of everything else.
It is also, from a practical storytelling standpoint, a clean way to remove the technology problem that plagues so many modern horror films. No cell signal required.
Coming Up on Grave Tone
Before wrapping up, Meaghan and Arthur gave us a preview of what’s ahead for the podcast. An interview with Mark Acheson, who appeared in Silent Night, Deadly Night and a number of other horror productions, is dropping soon.
They also interviewed Eric Miller, an author with a recently published book called Whatever Happened to Uncle Ed? and an anthology series called Hell Comes to Hollywood that is nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. Beyond writing, Miller has extensive credits as a screenwriter and producer, and the conversation sounds like a fascinating look at the behind-the-scenes side of genre filmmaking.
They’re also working on a screening of WETIKO, a psychedelic jungle thriller filmed in Spanish and Mayan with English subtitles, and they’re hoping to lock in an interview with the writer-director. On top of that, they just recorded a crossover episode with the Halloween is Forever podcast covering Larry Fessenden films in a three-way head-to-head format that sounds like exactly as much fun as it should be.
March is apparently going to be relentless. The Bride is dropping next week, followed by Undertone, which has been getting serious attention. The calendar is full, the horror is incoming, and we are absolutely here for all of it.
If you want to know where to start with your own watch list, there’s a horror movie picker quiz on the website where you answer four questions and get a recommendation from their best picks. This Is Not a Test will be on there now that Arthur has officially approved it.
Until then, stay scared and stay tuned.