A certain kind of apocalypse horror hits harder than the sprawling wasteland stuff: the version where the world ends mid-class, the hallways become choke points, and the safest place you know turns into a trap. That’s the tension in the new trailer for “This Is Not a Test,” an apocalyptic horror-thriller starring Olivia Holt as Sloane Price, one of five teenagers trapped inside their high school while a zombie apocalypse erupts outside.
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The film was adapted from bestselling author Courtney Summers’ hit YA novel, a cult-favorite that used the undead as a pressure valve for something more intimate: trauma, isolation, and the way teen volatility can turn “we’re in this together” into suspicion and snap judgments. Inside the lockdown, survival becomes a grim social experiment—who leads, who cracks, and how quickly fear rewrites the rules. In this kind of setup, the zombies are the obvious threat, but the real suspense tends to come from what happens when people have nowhere to go, and every decision becomes a referendum on trust.
Writer-director Adam MacDonald brings his grounded, close-quarters sensibility back to the siege template after “Backcountry” and “Out Come the Wolves,” leaning into the logistics of staying alive: barricades, rationing, and relentless pressure at the doors. It’s a space he knows well—survival horror that plays like a bad situation turning worse by the minute.
Holt is joined by Corteon Moore, Froy Gutierrez, Chloe Avakian, Carson MacCormac, and Luke MacFarlane, giving the movie an ensemble built for friction.
Release-wise, IFC and Shudder will release the film exclusively in theaters on Friday, February 20. Watch the trailer below.
