The Girl With All The Gifts * * *

Last year I hurriedly grabbed a book at the airport to give me something to read on the flight  Not a real smart way to select your reading.  I then realised I was stuck with a zombie book (the blurb on the back had been rather ambiguous).  But it turned out to be not too bad. I remember thinking at the time, “This’ll be a film” little knowing it was already in production.

     It’s still to be released in Australia, and it’s just about to go to DVD in the UK and the USA so I don’t know what the procrastination is here.

    It’s a futuristic story set in the UK.  Like nearly all zombie films it's not terribly imaginative (seen one zombie seen ‘em all) but zombie fanatics insist it’s different (they’d know more than me).  Maybe the tragic plight of the zombie hasn't been portrayed before?

"Trust me" says the little zombie

    Nearly all of England has turned into zombies through some fungus. The survivors are holed up in military camps around the country.  One such camp gets broken into by hordes of zombies so a teacher, a doctor and a couple of soldiers have to make a run for it. Along with a little zombie called Melanie (the girl with all the gifts).  The teacher has been trying to teach little zombies to be human and the doctor has been chopping them up to see if she can find a cure or an immunisation.  The doctor (Glenn Close) and the teacher (Gemma Arterton)  hate each other and have different plans for Melanie

    It’s a bit of a road trip as they make their way to "Beacon", a large camp-fortress in London.  Along the way the soldiers have to kill quite a few zombies which you might enjoy if you’re into splatter.  But the real crux of the story is what to do with Melanie who is demonstrably highly intelligent, desirous of being human, but still stuck with an irrepressible flesh eating urge.

    The post apocalyptic England is very well done with deserted streets and cars, overgrown with weeds, crumbling buildings and an eerie silence. The zombies which they call “hungries” hang out together but when they attack they are frightening with their strength and speed and in their determination to get a bite out of their victim. They're horrid! I’d shoot em too, even if they had been someone's Mum once.

  It’s a pretty good adaptation of a lengthy book, which efficiently focuses on the essence of the story.