The Girl with all the Gifts - review

2016 (UK / USA)

2017 Warner Home Video Blu-ray R(B/2)

Contains mild spoilers.

Just when I was starting to think the modern zombie love affair was over, all bar the bell, along comes a film (and book) that just for a moment reminds me that all might not be lost. With a clear, brave and original vision, great determination, and exquisite competence, The Girl with all the Gifts instils hope, and acts as to remind, if we needed it, that the zombie is a timeless metaphor, reflective and responsive to the fears of each new generation and both malleable and submissive to always be open to change. It's that admission that The Walking Dead post-apocalyptic survival slog, and the jaunty, flippant and entirely throwaway zombie-comedy might not be the only games in town; that rehashing the same narrative, or telling the same joke with minor cosmetic change might not be the only way to draw genre fans back time and again. Yes we're reliant yet again on brave independent film makers with a modest budget but maybe what with all the critical acclaim there's always the chance some of this fearless and avant-garde spice will rub off on the big boys; and also I for one would be happy for keen enthusiasts to once again take point even it does mean the number of films released takes a massive hit.

Okay; perhaps I'm guilty myself of going overboard whenever the next shiny new zombie story arrives, as British director Colm McCarthy's zombie's look and feel borrows heavily from Danny Boyle and the 28 Days Later phenomena. Also the story, without spoiling too much, of a new hybrid / evolved species potentially rendering the old extinct and redundant, shares more than few parallels with I Am Legend. Yet there's enough ingenuity and nuance in the weave performed by writer M.R. Carey, and more than enough skill and style in its transition from words to picture that I'm happy to overlook any complaints of imitation or derivation. Anyway; aren't there really only seven stories in the world?

Glen Close may be the name that grabs the box office headlines but it's 12 year old Sennia Nanua as Melanie that will certainly garner all the acclaim when the dust has settled. Her portrayal as the innocent, bright eyed but ultimately cursed inmate is nuanced and faultless, and contrasts perfectly with the cold, stark utilitarian lead scientist Dr. Caroline Caldwell played by Close. Along with sympathetic and intensely conflicted teacher Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton) and hard line Sgt. Eddie Parks (Paddy Considine) they perfectly capture the absurd, contradictory and desperate end of the world moral maze the story presents them with. Melanie is a human / zombie aberration torn, not born, into the world from infection in the womb. She shares the same vicious hunger to kill and eat, and yet she's also born with not just cognisant and rational thought, but perhaps, and this is the journey for both us, and the characters, the ability to control it.

Us zombie fans can be awfully annoying at times; stubborn and dogmatic that there's one way to do something; there's one zombie and he's dead, slow and Romero's prodigy. I still see pointless debate as to whether Boyle's not dead but infected are somehow not zombie, as if pulse alone dictates deadness forgetting that zombies were around and breathing well before the undead movement took them as one of their own and Romero finally applied the final death-nail. McCarthy's 'hungries' are vicious, flesh eating, fast, extremely dangerous and alive. They're also, and this is defining trait, utterly devoid of the humanity and more importantly self-awareness and cognisant empathy that made them who they were. They're rabid animals; actually worse; they're destructive entirely reactive automatons driven by insatiable hunger and nothing else. So they have a pulse? So what. McCarthy also isn't afraid to shock and disturb by presenting the zombies with a brutality that reinforces the no-win quandary those enforcing the imprisonment and experimentation are actually in. 

The Girl with all the Gifts certainly does better when the story sticks to the confines of the bunker / school, and the contrasting and clashing moral maelstrom of fear, necessity, desperation rubbing up against those small slithers of hope born from love and believing in the human condition. The action once the compound is breached and the group are forced to set out across the stricken over-run wasteland still shows signs of flair and originality, never content to becomes another derivative zombie survival yarn, yet it won't be what the film is remembered for. The Girl with all the Gifts is that shining ray of light in unending darkness, both as a narrative trope, and also as innovative and thoughtful movie in a plethora of mediocre. I loved it and perhaps the cinematic zombie might be quite safe after all - 8/10.

Steven@WTD.

The Last Days on Mars - review

2013 (UK / Ireland)

2014 Universal Pictures UK Blu-ray R(All)

Contains spoilers.

That escalated quickly. One minute there's a tight soap-opera, with space weary astronauts and scientists, anxiously and frustratingly riling each other as they prepare for their long haul back to Earth, knowing they've been unsuccessful in their mission to find life on the red planet. The next, there's a crazed homicidal zombie battering the airlock with his gaunt black skinned face hell bent on death, carnage and really spoiling the going away party. And that's the thing. As much as I enjoyed début director Ruairi Robinson's claustrophobic little zombie survival story there's just not enough subtlety and nuance to proceedings. The result, while competently put together with a strong narrative and its solid cast, is never more than its constituent parts; it's all rather bland and safe, and it's a bit of a pity.

Their timing is atrocious. Okay they would be arriving back at Earth without plaudits, their mission deemed a failure, with a new crew already well on the way to scientific immortality, but one more day, nineteen hours to be precise, to stay out of trouble and they'd still be alive. We've watched enough horrors by now though to know it only takes a little over-extending, a small bending of the rules and a tiny bit of deceit by one self-centred idiot to put in motion a series of events that leaves most, if not all, others in a world of pain. And in The Last Days on Mars it's Marko Petrovic (Goran Kostic) the eight person crew has to thank, who on the eve of evacuation decides he'll break protocol and lie to take one final trip out to a site he believes may contain fossilized evidence of bacterial life; though instead of bringing him fame and fortune, it brings him a bad fall and a nasty case of dead and zombie.

The action is gripping, the effects lavish and production polished it's just the ensuing hour of good quality zombie shenanigans is rather formulaic and by the number. A fight here, a siege there, another fight here, a bit of betrayal and a last ditch plan to survive it's good manic fun but just all a bit derivative and predictable. It's also all rather in your face with little play with suspense or ambiguity. Marko lies dead in an alien pit, Lauren Dalby (Yusra Warsama) is left alone to stand guard while the rest of the crew lead by Charles Brunel (Elias Koteas) go get the body-in-alien-fungus-hole-retrieval-kit. On returning they're gone but there's some obvious tracks leading back to the base, which the film cuts to just in time to see them arrive, in full-on no-nonsense zombie siege mode. There's really no pause for breath, no time to gather thoughts, establish motivations, build tension. They arrive, they get in, they start bashing heads and drilling stomachs and we're expected to go along with it all.

There's no mention of zombies on the box and it could easily have been a film I overlooked, but it's as zombie as you can get. The black veined oxygen deprived gut munchers are very much dead in the human sense with total loss of self and identity. They're highly infectious, they're driven with an insatiable hunger to kill, and possibly eat their victims and they really look the part, though with a c. $7m budget I'd expect them too. It's the alien bacteria that's responsible for all the trouble and the film adheres to the tried and tested trope that dictates blood exposure to lead to slow painful death then death to zombie, and there's not much in the way of dubiousness. Though for mindless homicidal brutes they're pretty nifty with all the tools, machinery and explosives they use to use, which maybe opens some coherency issues, but really it just cements their credentials as 'A' tier zombie bad assess one should not want to trifle with.

The Last Days on Mars is a solid action oriented space horror that doesn't really do much wrong other than not dare to be a more intelligent and passionate. With little emotional depth to the characters and some rather sombre performances the atmosphere of peril and dread you feel should be pervasive and consuming fails to appear, and the pain, anguish and ultimate deaths of the crew fail to carry much weight. This is no more exemplified than with star of the show Liev Schreiber as Vincent Campbell, hero and lone survivor, and the deliberately left-open final life and death scene, and my genuine lack of concern and enthusiasm towards its outcome.

With fighting scenes that are nicely choreographed and look great there's a simple uncompromising action horror here that will entertain, and Mars does make a beautiful back drop for full on zombie fun; it's just, like the red planet itself, lacking in atmosphere, and all rather flat and lifeless - 6/10.

Steven@WTD.

Kill Zombie! (Zombibi) - review

2012 (Netherlands)

2012 Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment DVD R(2)

Contains mild spoilers.

This one, it turns out, is an amateur zom-rom-com Dutch production set in its own capital. It's an unabashed unassuming little Shaun of the Dead wannabe that never strays too far from what's expected and doesn't really do anything wrong. All in all it's quite light, fun, the characters are likeable and quirky, the whole thing is very well presented and there's the odd memorable over the top bit of action or gore. The thing is, with zombies the current zeitgeist and a market flooded, not bad, quite pleasurable, nothing wrong, isn't really enough any more. I mean, unless your a true zombie nut, like yours truly, willing to watch absolutely everything out there you're only really going to pick the genre darlings and this unfortunately isn't going to one of them, despite, as I say, actually being quite good.

Aziz (Yahya Gaier) is Shaun from Shaun of the Dead, a shirt and tie wearing miserable disenchanted 9 to 5er. The only thing keeping him going is his dream of romancing co-worker Tess (Nadia Poeschmann) but on the eve of his first date a series of unfortunate events looks to have scuppered his chances. First he's fired, partly because his free and easy bum of a brother Mo (Mimoun Ouled Radi) can't stop phoning him but mostly because he has a jealous petty-Hitler of a boss. Second, he and his brother are arrested and thrown in a cell for the night after getting into a spat with a pair of Surinamese goons at a barbecue / pool party. And third, and this one's the most significant, a Russian Space station / satellite has crashed to earth covered in toxic green moss and turned the whole population of West Amsterdam into dangerous flesh eating zombies; oh, and Tess is still stranded at the office, which also happens to be ground zero.

Directors Martijn Smits and Erwin van den Eshof know how to paint quite the apocalyptic vision. Azis, Mo and their now Surinamese survival companions, Jeffrey (Sergio Hasselbaink) and Nolan (Uriah Arnhem) emerge from the cells into a picture-perfect (if that's the right phrase) ruined cityscape complete with building fires, abandoned cars and putrid green pustule covered alien-zombies. Everything looks great, the CG doesn't actually look that fake and the zombies are authentic appearing and quite gnarly. After a quick altercation with a wheel-chaired old lady zombie, emphasising at once the danger they're in and that we shouldn't be taking this all too seriously, the gang are ushered back into the police station and we're introduced to Kim (Gigi Ravelli) the films glamorous, kick-ass leading police lady.

As stated, there's nothing wrong with the film. Action and comedy guides the narrative and the group stumble from one location and goofy fight to the next all the while pitching Aziz's desire to rescue the damsel in distress with Mo, and the rest of the group who want to get the hell out of dodge. The various set pieces are well put together, stylish and playful with Smits and Eshof not afraid to go all Dead Rising with the extensive use of wacky and humour-some zombie dispatching weaponry and methods, and interspersing it all on occasion with zany comic-book / video game sequences straight out of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

The word alien isn't actually mentioned, and it could well be some Russian biological experiment gone wrong, but the green goo spewing zombies are sure made up to look not of this world. It still suffers a little from the 'if touching the green goo turned the first into zombies, why are these particular survivors apparently immune', syndrome but as is the case with the not so serious zombie films, total coherence isn't necessarily the number one priority. The infection, or what ever it is, is transferred through the standard zombie bite with the victim deteriorating rapidly, zombiefying, dying then reanimating with a hunger for flesh, either alive or dead. There's also the hint everyone's infected anyway and the bite merely hastens death and the inevitable turn. Behaviour wise they're your usual slow shufflers, though as is the way the odd faster gnarly zombie appears sporadically to spice up the action, and even a completely out of place comedy zombie makes an appearance here and there though they kind of feel a little awkward and overly contrived.

All in all, Kill Zombie! is a quirky little Dutch zombie film. It's quite fun, quite coherent, quite well written and quite well acted and quite well paced. The zombies are well made up, the sets are lavish and expansive and there's more than one great, gratuitous memorable scene. The comedy compliments the action well despite the fact I never felt it was quite as funny as it thought it did and the cast do a good job with either their dry straight-man or slapstick roles. It's fine, honestly; a nice evenings viewing and it definitely scratched that apocalyptic zombie itch but, and here's the crutch. It does everything adequately, nothing more, coming across a tad stale, a tad going though the motions and derivative, like a poor mans Juan of the Dead or a trite Dutch multicultural Shaun of the Dead, both of which are fresher, more original and more authentic. Kill Zombie! is good, don't get me wrong, it's just good isn't good enough in a subgenre packed with truly great, 5/10.

WTD.