Macabre…ish Horror Review: The Girl With All The Gifts
The Girl With All The Gifts, 2016/ 1 hr 51 min
Children are kept in cells and strapped into wheelchairs by armed guard, in order to attend class in what appears to be a bunker or military installation. These children are different and were all neonates when they were brought here, all chewed their way out of their infected mother’s wombs and ‘raised’ in this facility. They are both hated and feared by all but Ms. Justineau (Gemma Arterton), one of their teachers.
The children all appear normal until they see bare skin, uncovered by gel and then they react like zombies. They otherwise are as normal as any other children.
One evening, for punishment by a cruel Sgt. Parks (Paddy Considine), Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is not released from her chair and is found by Miss Justineau and released but she goes in without her skin covered and she almost doesn’t make it out.
The next day, Melanie is taken topside to Dr. Caldwell’s (Glenn Close) lab and after being put on an examination table for dissection, Miss Justineau barges in to stop it. She does not share the same opinion that these children are controlled by fungus and are not human. She does not agree that these children should be used to make zombie vaccine.
After Miss Justineau is over powered, the perimeter fails and zombies pour in. And Melanie escapes but the minute she can feed, she can’t control herself. When she’s done, she is rescued by her teacher and evacuated with Dr. Caldwell’s transport.
After the fuel line is severed on their truck during a fire fight, the group is on foot, they are out of communication range of the base, even if they could get help. They cover themselves in gel that makes them somewhat invisible to the hoards of zombies in the nearby town which is being reclaimed by nature.
Melanie proves herself by clearing the crowd of zombies out of the way through. And she’s opted to eat animals, insuring the humans are safe. She wears a mask but is otherwise untethered and continuing to gain their trust. The group find a pile of bodies with what appear to be pods growing out of them and sending vines out, some of which cover entire buildings. The doctor says it is the next stage in the pathogen’s life cycle. And they could mean the end of the world, all it would take is a fire.
But all is not lost, if they can find the mobile military lab, Dr. Caldwell still hopes to synthesize a vaccine there. And It looks like they did not recover all the infected infants. They are thriving here and they have grown.
This is a British zombie film directed by Colm McCarthy based on a story by the same name written by Mike Carey. In this movie, they aren’t called zombies but hungries. And this zombie outbreak was created by a fungus. The zombie makeup is rags and heavily caked on mud. They move fast and remind me of World War Z zombies in the way they attack but this is not a zombie gore fest. Plus they also eat animals as well as humans. This movie is very good!