Today sees the UK DVD and Blu-Ray release of The Girl With All The Gifts, a zombie film like no other which follows the story of a young girl named Melanie who’s brought up on a military base for a very special reason…
Set in the UK and starring Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close, Paddy Considine and Sennia Nanua, the film explores life ten years after a fungal outbreak which sees most of the population consumed by the parasitic organism.
To celebrate the release, I’ve decided to take a look at 5 of the best unconventional zombie movies of the last decade – films which are more than your average gnash-em-up.
Maggie (2015)
Though Maggie wasn’t the most exciting or engaging film ever, being quite the slow moving experience, it depicted a father’s grief rather well. Knowing your daughter is sick, or in this case ‘infected’, and knowing that the end is near, must be heartbreaking. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a role as we’ve never seen him before, does a dramatic turn as the father to Abigail Breslin’s daughter and the two explore the father-daughter dynamic in which there’s no hope to save her from the inevitable.
Life After Beth (2014)
What would you do if the girl you loved came back from the dead? This is what Dane DeHaan must contend with in rom-zom-com Life After Beth. The film takes a bite out of cutesy teen-romance when Beth gives in to her inner urges which provide most of the laughs in this movie. A far cry from horror, this tale sits somewhere between the zombie genre and Pet Sematary, albeit with humans.
The Dead (2010)
Probably the nearest thing to conventional zombie movies, what sets the Ford Brothers’ movie The Dead apart from others is its unique use of location. Set in Africa, the film follows an army lieutenant who’s plane crashes during his departure from the infected, overrun country. As the sole survivor of the crash, he must make his way back to civilisation, dodging any infected in his path, in a bid to return home to his family.
Outpost (2008)
Nazi zombies may now be common place, what with Dead Snow and the likes, but none quite did it like Steve Barker’s Outpost. A crack team of soldiers in Eastern Europe are hunted down by an army of supernatural Nazi zombie soldiers led by the breather (Johnny Mere). Outpost doesn’t really feel like a zombie film with its tension-building narrative and its sparse, cloak-and-dagger style use of the antagonists, which is why it works so well. Unfortunately, this mysterious look into Nazi technology gives way to the traditional action-survival style of zombie movies in the inferior sequels.
Stalled (2013)
How many zombie movies do you know that are set in a toilet cubicle? Stalled from director Christian James is just that! Cue lots of toilet humour as a caretaker must defend himself from a hoard of zombies invading the women’s bathroom which he is hiding in. Humour blended with gory visuals makes this film a hit with the horror crowd.
The Girl With All The Gifts is available on DVD and Blu-Ray now.
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