Title: The Girl With All the Gifts
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Colm McCarthy
Starring: Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close, Sennia Nanua
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins

What It Is: When a fungus plagues the world turning anyone who gets infected into a flesh-eating “hungries”. A certain sector of young people happens to have been born in this world. Those children have been gathered in a facility under the guidance of Dr. Caroline Caldwell (Close). Brilliant young woman Melanie (Nanua) is a standout in her class and her teacher Miss Justineau (Arterton) realizes this. She thinks she can take these potentially dangerous children and change them, particularly Melanie.

What We Think: There are some amazing highlights in this! You’ve seen zombie films and thankfully this is more 28 Days Later and less Zombeavers. Not only is the script tight the direction is tense and but I really didn’t expect that. Colm McCarthy’s previous work is all on television. Young actress Sennia Nanua is amazing as Melanie and she’s a real killer (pun intended) in this. Really everyone is fantastic and they’re given plenty of stuff to do. I’d like to mention that this is a very small film but they stretched that budget every way they could.

Our Grade: B-, Probably the best zombie movie I’ve seen in some time and better than like the last 3 seasons of The Walking Dead. I highly recommend you check this one out because it’s films like this that really make independent cinema a thing to behold. This is a story big budget films have been trying to tell but just can never get right. There’s a tension in a couple of scenes that’ll have you crapping your pants. So certainly bring another pair of shorts for this one. I love it when I can help the small films get some attention!