A new ice age generated by mankind to wipe out a plague has in turn killed off most of the human race. A motley group of survivors led by Vargas (likeable Eric Szmanda) embark on a perilous quest to reach a safe haven known as Shangri-La.

Writer/director Nick Wauters keeps the absorbing story moving along at a constant pace, presents a vivid depiction of a bleak desolate wintry world, maintains a serious tone throughout, offers a neat array of colorful characters, and stages some thrilling last reel action with flair and skill. Moreover, Wauters warrants extra praise for making a band of mutants sympathetic protagonists while the hateful humans are the villains of the piece. The solid acting by the capable cast keeps this movie humming: Sara Malakal Lane as sensitive psychic Pax, Patrick Batiste as the angry Kalo, Rocky Bonifield as the flaky Gyro, Ewan Chung as the suspicious Tai, Josh Shibati as the two-fisted Aisa, Mykayla Sohn as the fragile Quint, Mercy Malick as the hard-nosed Dr. Jennifer Holliston, and Ken Narasaki as the excitable Dr. Linus Zhou. The CGI effects are pretty decent and acceptable considering the modest budget. A cool little flick.

The plot is read and then built in flashbacks. This is not recommended unless you have a really great cast, plot, and special effects. I can understand "the hate." This feature appears to be the first in a series, which shouldn't be too bad because everyone is introduced.

The year is 2549 and the world is in a manmade ice age that started in 2045. In 2019 pharmaceutical company HEZUO was experimenting with creating a creature for the military that could be programmed to target an individual or group of individuals based on their DNA. Can only guess why the 2019 administration would want that. The odd thing is that they are collaborating with China and Moscow. (Now we know what Trump was talking to Putin about at Helsinki.)

The creature develops intellect and eventually escapes and takes over a human body as a host. They are called "Konglings." The government attempted to kill them with a satellite light beam (after a failed vaccine attempt) that won't harm humans but will kill the Konglings. This light beam caused a world ice age...a little sketchy on those details.

The characters we get to know are a group of Konglings attempting to survive, hence the creatures wanting to kill and replace mankind are the protagonists. Each one has its own special "gift." They have to fight off the military, mutant bats, the elements, look for food and each other. As it turns out the Konglings are not are united either and after 500 years has formed cults that are at odds.

The series has the potential to be interesting with some decent soundtrack and editing. In one scene they go into a bay. They are looking for emergency power. The camera pans to the ceiling where we see a number of large lights that are turned on. He reports "No sign of power and electricity." It appears the folks doing the editing have no idea what the scene is about. This type of Ed Wood nonsense kills a film. Take it back, Edit it. Get some decent swagger music.

Guide: No F-words. Brief nudity. Male butts and blurred breasts. And they all sleep together nude or near nude. What was that?

My main reasons for seeing 'Shangri-La: Near Extinction' were an intriguing title and concept, that it was part of my low-budget film quest after being recommended to me by IMDb in my recommended for you section and as someone trying to see as many 2018 films as possible.

The good news about 'Shangri-La: Near Extinction' is that there have been worse films seen by me throughout my life and recently, ones that are even more amateurish, intelligence insulting and ones that blatantly rip off infinitely superior films more cheaply. The bad news is that that doesn't stop 'Shangri-La: Near Extinction' from being very bad.

Am trying to be a fair reviewer trying to see the good in everything viewed, as always. It is very hard to do that here with so many badly executed elements, that look as if little effort was made. The least bad asset is the scenery which did have atmosphere.

Visually, 'Shangri-La: Near Extinction' looks incredibly cheap even for something made on a low budget. It's very drably and sometimes dizzyingly shot, incoherently edited (bacon-slicer-like) with glaring and unforgivably sloppy continuity errors. Even worse are some of the most laughable and pathetic-looking special effects to be seen on celluloid, actually looking they were done as an afterthought and on the small remainder of the money they had left. Nothing menacing or threatening and there are no surprises.

Can remember little about the music, which tended to be intrusive, annoying and out of place. The script is so awkward, cheesy and improvisatory-sounding that it is enough to make the toes curl in how awful it is. The ending is very predictable and pretty contrived.

There is absolutely nothing thrilling, tense, suspenseful, emotionally investable or fun about the story. The predictability may have been forgivable if the film was actually engaging let alone exciting but it fails to be either throughout. 'Shangri-La: Near Extinction' is basically non-stop dullness and intelligence-insulting ridiculousness, with unintentional humour because of the excessive cheese, bouts of mawkish and stilted melodrama and irritating character behaviours that makes one endear to them even less in a film with not one interesting or rootable character. Hated the sister especially.

As for the acting it ranges from borderline-okay to appalling, some try to engage with their material but the worst of the acting is so embarrassing one questions whether they had any acting lessons.

In conclusion, not one of the worst films seen recently or ever but very bad. 2/10 Bethany Cox