By Robert Scucci
| Published
New Life starts with a bloody face in the first act, but the blood on Jessica Murdock’s (Hayley Erin) face doesn’t belong to her. Hitting the ground running in both the literal and figurative sense, Jessica’s situation starts out as a run from the law, but doesn’t leave you in the dark long before showing you what’s really at stake.
Flawlessly demonstrating how shifts in perspective can change an entire story, New Life is a movie that reveals its dangers along the way as it barrels through its tight, 84-minute runtime, turning Jessica’s personal problem into one that can threaten humanity as we know it.
Jessica’s Predicament
At first, we don’t know the full scope of Jessica’s trouble in New Life, but we know whatever she’s running from isn’t good. Though the blood on her face doesn’t belong to her, she does have a black eye, as well as reservations about wearing the engagement ring that was given to her by fiancé who’s not seen on-screen at this point, leading the viewer to believe that she was on the receiving end of some kind of domestic abuse which caused her to defend herself in ways that are irreversible.
Meanwhile, Elsa Gray (Sonya Walger) finds herself leading a manhunt (or is a womanhunt?), and is instructed to capture Jessica because she’s on the run and considered dangerous.
New Life doesn’t fully reveal the source of its tension, or the reasons Jessica is evading authorities and fleeing to the Canadian border until those who help her along the way die violent deaths after becoming infected by a mutated strain of Ebola that Jessica’s carrying asymptomatically. Elsa, a fixer who’s coping with her recent ALS diagnosis, is tasked with containing the infection, as she refuses to retire and her unique health situation leaves her with nothing to lose at this point in her life because her entire life is her job.
Nobody Is Safe, And Nobody Is Innocent
New Life offers a unique twist on the classic trolly problem in the sense that an infected Jessica is the person laying on one track, and the rest of the world is laying on the other. Elsa finds herself operating the switch, and her rapidly declining health begins to cloud her judgment as she is forced to make a decision that could very well alter the course of history if Jessica’s infection isn’t properly contained. Jessica, who has no idea why everybody she comes into contact with ends up dying (or becoming zombies), is in many ways an innocent victim but chooses to continue evading authorities because she fears for her life.
While New Life masterfully switches perspectives in its attempt to leave its viewers in the dark during its first act, the pieces of the puzzle are right there for the viewer to put together, undermining its narrative framework in the sense that there aren’t really any big reveals once things really get cooking.
Despite this shortcoming, which has the potential to make or break a horror thriller, you’ll still find yourself at the edge of your seat wondering how everything’s going to end for Jessica and Elsa because the chase is on, and New Life’s final outcome will ultimately take you into uncharted territory.
As of this writing, you can stream New Life with an active Hulu subscription.
