Rot has a lot going on. Simple as that. Numerous subplots and tonal shifts all throughout. That’s not to say that it is a bad film, it’s just three different films glued together. When the movie finds its groove, it grooves rather well. But it doesn’t sit still long enough to really let what it does well sink in. The first act is about obsession and could be a decent character drama, the second act transforms into something more like a slow burn thriller/horror and the less said about the finale act, the better.

In a care facility, Rose is awoken by another patient. She is acting weird, and we jump ahead to the next morning and find that the patient acting oddly died and now Rose is showing some of the same behavior. We then meet Madison who is working on completing her master’s in psychology, she is stressed and hyper focused. Her boyfriend, Jesse, wants to take things to the next level while also working at the same care facility. After an argument, Madison realizes they want different things, and she breaks up with Jesse. During this time, he helps Rose who ends up assaulting him. He passes the mysterious infection, and it slowly spreads.

The acting in Rot could have been bad considering the story and script but it was average. No one stood out as awful but then again no one stood out as great either. Madison (Kris Alexandrea) as the lead was serviceable if a little wooden in places. While Jesse (Johnny Kostrey) was equally middle of the road. The area that no amount of acting could help is the writing of the characters. Besides one or two, every character was just awful.

There isn’t anything inherently terrible about Rot besides the characters themselves but there isn’t really anything that stands out well either. From a visual standpoint, the colors and lighting tend to be muted or washed out. The audio was mostly even and easy to hear. Though being able to hear and see what’s going on can only get you so far when the editing and pacing are as rough as it is. It can be jarring and slightly confusing at times which doesn’t help with the already bloated and all over the place.

Rot doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel or anything which is fine. It’s just that what it does try, it doesn’t do particularly well. You could easily find worse movies to watch, and you could find better ones too. I have seen films use the Body Snatchers formula with varying degrees of success, Rot isn’t the worst of them. It feels like there is something buried under all inconsistencies but at this point, its ninety-minute run time feels padded. Rot can be boring, frustrating, and totally nuts, sometimes all at once but ultimately, its biggest pitfall is that it feels pointless.

4 out of 10