The Colony has modest rewards: It's decently acted, delivers some well-executed jolts, doesn't insult the viewer's intelligence, and is mercifully free of ironic distance.

The Colony is two-thirds of a pretty good sci-fi suspense movie. But it eventually takes a disappointing turn and becomes yet another run-from-the-ghouls exercise, cheapening decent work by a good cast.

Utterly routine futuristic horror-thriller The Colony substitutes the term “ferals” for plain old zombies (the modern, fast-moving kind), and that’s about it for originality.

Notwithstanding the efforts of a game cast, this is a grotesque miscalculation that disrespects the memory of those who perished in one of the darkest episodes in recent history by turning it into a piece of white-knuckle entertainment.

The problem is that the filmmakers' aversion to any hint of storytelling originality means that the main impression The Colony leaves is one of almost stupefying over-familiarity.