Scott (Nick Rhind) has come to town, meeting his ex Jesse (Robyn Ledoux) in the process. Well, also in said town, a church has burned down, and it had entombed an ancient pestilence called "The Scourge", which has gotten loose, and starts turning anyone it infects into a hungry, belching, zombie like being that eats any kind of food, and attacks and spreads the parasite. Can Scott and Jesse stop The Scourge before it's too late, and rekindle their love in the process? Can they deal with Corrupt Sheriff Durst (Russ Ferrier)? Will you find any reason to care?
I will give "Scourge" this much: it does have a few decent gory scenes (best one: jaw punched nearly off), a sense of awareness, and the Canadian feeling of the movie doesn't hurt. Also, I like the feel of the movie at times, as it feels like the kind of unambitious but watchable B-Movies you'd get back in the 80's. Oh, and the CG creature effects aren't too bad. They aren't great, but they are better than a lot of low budget CG creations.
That's not to say that this is a good movie. If you took "The Hidden" and "Slither", and removed much that made them noteworthy, then "Scourge" is what you get. The whole thing is also a cliché as you get, and not in a good way. Corrupt police? Check. Bad boy with a past? Yep. Rekindled romance between bad boy and ex-girlfriend? Uh huh. Comic relief fat guy? You bet your ass. It also doesn't help that none of the performances here are worth a damn, especially two leads, who have the charisma and chemistry of dry cement. Watching them, I couldn't help but roll my eyes when they finally got together, and this is coming from a guy whose a bit of a romantic at heart. I normally love seeing two people get together, but not if I don't care about them.
I didn't really hate "Scourge". but that's because I didn't really give a s#!t about it either. If you're going to watch it, wait until it comes on TV, particularly the Chiller channel, which tends to pick up movies like this regularly.