The Girl with All the Gifts
(2016) 111 Min.
Rated: R (gore)
Country: USA | UK
Director: Colm McCarthy
Starring: Sennia Nanua, Glenn Close, Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★★☆
A special girl struggles to survive in the aftermath of a London zombie outbreak.
Synopsis:
Melanie (Nanua) is a child born into a post-apocalyptic world where humans get infected by a fungus and become ravenous. She is kept in a bunker on a base with other children who are strictly treated as monsters and are strapped to wheelchairs whenever they are taken out of their rooms.
They are allowed to have lessons with a teacher named Ms. Helen Justineau (Arterton) who sneaks in Greek myths among their usual lessons. Melanie shows exceptional intellect and even the base scientist, Dr. Caroline Caldwell (Close), takes notice.
Dr. Caldwell asks Melanie puzzles and then requests a random number. When Melanie replies 13, she notices the next day that student 13 is no longer in class. Ms. Justineau asks the students to write a fantasy story to get their minds off the missing student and Melanie writes a tale where a beautiful woman like Ms. Justineau will forever favor a brave girl like Melanie.
As Ms. Justineau pats Melanie’s head, Sgt. Eddie Parks (Considine) walks in and angrily demonstrates the true risk in getting too close to the children. He spits on his arm and once a boy smells it he becomes ravenous and tries to attack Sgt. Parks.
Dr. Caldwell speaks to Melanie and asks her for a random number. This time she chooses her own room number and the next day she is not taken to class. Melanie is taken to a lab and given a sedative. Ms. Justineau tries to rescue Melanie, but Caldwell sprays her in the face with a pepper spray. Justineau is hauled away by guards, but the guards also inform Caldwell of a breach in the main gate.
A doctor’s assistant attempts to close the shutters so they can continue their experiment despite the zombie breach, however one zombie runs up and crashes through a window, managing to bite the assistant. Dr. Caldwell is able to stab the zombies dead with a broken shard of glass, but now has a giant wound on her hand. She flees into another room and leaves Melanie on the operating table while the assistant turns into a zombie.
Melanie is invisible to the zombie and manages to cut herself free of the table using a scalpel nearby. She wanders onto the chaos of the field and spots Ms. Justineau being dragged away by guards. Melanie attacks the guards and Justineau and Melanie are both rescued.
They end up in an armored truck with Dr. Caldwell and Sgt. Eddie Parks. There is also a soldier from the compound named Private Kieran Gallagher. The group decide that it is safest if Melanie wears a face mask so she will not bite them. The group stop to get water and one of their soldiers dies in an attack from zombies.
Their armored truck breaks down and they decide to go into London on foot despite the mass of “Hungries”. As the group has a blocker serum on and Melanie cannot be detected, they manage to sneak inside of an empty abandoned hospital.
While in the hospital, Dr. Caldwell informs Melanie that she and the children like her are second generation Hungries. She explains how the fungal infection is primarily spread through saliva and blood contact, but also that children like Melanie were infected while they were fetuses in their mother’s womb. Those babies ate their way out of their mothers.
The group realize that the Hungries are surrounding the hospital in larger numbers and Melanie offers to distract them away. They release her and while free she attacks and devours a cat. She finds a small dog and releases it near the hospital, with the Hungries chasing after it.
The group is able to move along well with Melanie’s help. Dr. Caldwell finds some of the Hungries are dead and there are growths coming out of their body with pods that should contain fugal spores.
They find a mass of dead Hungries and a mass of overgrowth and spore pods all over the large BT Tower in London. Nearby they also find a mobile laboratory called Rosalind Franklin. The group tries to call from help but get no response. They settle into the mobile lab and Gallagher goes out to look for food.
Melanie also goes out and manages to eat a pigeon. She sees a group of feral children who seem to be like her. She tries to warn Parks and Justineau that Gallagher is in danger. The group go out to find him.
The feral kids manage to trick Gallagher in a store and eat him. The group finds his corpse. Melanie feels that the children are just trying to survive.
Melanie knows they are also in a trap. She kills the leader of the tribe and establishes dominance among the tribal children.
When the group returns to the mobile lab, Dr. Caldwell has set a trap to gas Justineau, Parks and Melanie. Melanie, however, is able to hold her breath longer than a normal human and wakes up before Dr. Caldwell can dissect her. She has a discussion with Caldwell and decides she shouldn’t have to sacrifice herself. She grabs a box of matches and runs out of the mobile lab.
Caldwell runs after her but is attacked by the tribal children. Melanie lights the tower on fire, which opens all of the spore pods.
As she returns to the mobile lab she finds Parks outside. He succumbs to the spores and asks Melanie to kill him. She shoots him dead. She then goes to the lab and finds Justineau safely inside.
Justineau awakes one day and begins to teach class from inside the lab to feral children as well as the children from the experiment at the compound which Melanie has gathered on the ground in front outside.
Review:
A fresh and creative zombie film that doesn’t rely solely on fear of zombie attacks. We are placed in a world where the attacks have already occurred and the last bit of of humanity is trying to eek out an existence.
Human-zombie hybrids have somewhat been explored in other films before, but I feel like none of them go to the length of this story. The idea to make it a fungal infection is brilliant because it mimics very real parasitic fungus that infect ants. The idea of a fungus forcing a creature to move and produce spores is not science fiction.
Sennia Nanua as Melanie plays such a sympathetic creature. She has feelings and is intelligent. She loves her teacher dearly, too. Glenn Close plays a great menacing, but also slightly sympathetic Dr. Caldwell. In fact, most of the performances here are pretty compelling despite this being a zombie movie.
This is overall a great film in general and definitely a must-see for a fan of the zombie sub-genre.