The Girl with All the Gifts (2016) User Reviews

Nothing predictable about this, nothing whatsoever..

[A_Different_Drummer · 7/10 · 2 January 2017]

As a prolific reviewer, you tend to often discuss a film in terms of traditional arcs, and riffs off those same arcs.

Which is why it is always a treat when a film comes along that throws the script template out the window and forges its own path.

This is such a film. It reminded me of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN 1957, the first legitimate A-list sci-fi that, like this film, started off in what seemed a traditional manner -- and then went down a plot superhiway that no one had ever seen before.

It is not a perfect film. It has some flaws. For example, the first 30 minutes are better (more impact, more empathy, more entertaining) than the last 60 minutes. Which is not to suggest that the last hour is bad, merely that the first half-hour is drop-dead stunning and unforgettable.

And the director often seems confused about who the real star is? Ditto for the PR dept of the studio. If you check the IMDb reference, you will see that the young girl so brilliantly played by Sennia Nanua is given billing lower down on the cast list. That's an error. Sennia IS the film -- she practically picks it up and carries it to the finish line. The scenes without her are weak, the scenes with her are wonderful.

Nice iteration of a "really smart" zombie film. Recommended.

Excellent apocalyptic science fiction/horror movie...

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 20 December 2022]

... from the U. K., directed by Colm McCarthy. After an alien fungus has decimated the Earth's population, transforming anyone not an infant into a mindless zombie-like creature with a taste for human flesh, a contingent of British soldiers and scientists are hard at work trying to find a cure. Their hope lies with a group of children, all of whom were infected as infants, and who have grown up without the usual zombie-like symptoms. They appear and act normally, but they still can be overcome by a taste for living flesh that turns them violently animalistic. When the base falls to overwhelming numbers of the infected, a small group consisting of the most accomplished girl from the ranks of the children (Sennia Nanua), a sympathetic teacher (Gemma Arterton), a gruff sergeant (Paddy Considine), a new recruit soldier (Fisayo Akinade), and the coldly calculating head scientist (Glenn Close) head into the ruins of London to search and rescue.

I'm always surprised when filmmakers can find something new to do with a zombie movie, and they've done it again here. Newcomer Nanua is terrific as the precocious infected girl who is happy to be in the outside world for the first time, little realizing the destruction all around her. Arterton, Considine and Close are all fine, as expected. I know most viewers are burned out on zombie flicks (and TV series), but this one is worth a look.

Stands out from the pack

[ganason · 8/10 · 10 May 2017]

Let me say first that I am not a fan of zombie movies. Since George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead", most have been derivative. There have been some better than others (so I've been told) but none that really stand out from the pack. I think, though, that "The Girl with All the GIfts" is one that does stand out in this genre. I read about it and decided to take a chance on it...I figured if I didn't like it that I would just fast forward it and be done with it in about 15 minutes. So I took it out from my local library. Well, I got hooked from the beginning. I would recommend that if you want an interesting, unexpectedly well done movie then give this movie a chance

Ranges Frome Well Done to Bad

[Tweetienator · 6/10 · 3 January 2017]

The Girl with All the Gifts is a good movie of the walker/infected genre - a fungus spreads out in the world and transforms the humans to flesh craving numb-heads. We follow some scientists, a girl who has maybe the potential to cure the world and some soldiers in a world out of control. Well done are some scenes and settings which depict the feel of a desolated world very good, also we get some iconic scenes with the transforming crazies. What else!? Gemma Arterton and Glen Close can't act bad.

But I have to say the last quarter of the movie including the solution was a little bit too much of a let down to me. Also there are a few scenes in the end that just don't work form me, for example the scene where the little girl defends Gemma and a soldier against a horde of hungry crazy kids is so out of place and bad executed I couldn't help myself and felt embarrassed for the cast, for the director, for my self watching this - that scene (I guess you will understand me if you watch/watched the movie) is laughable, a total mess (as the girl with all the gifts grunted against the other kids I didn't know if I should laugh or cry out for mercy). So The Girl with All the Gifts is a good movie regarding the first three quarters, after that the movie sadly loses its quality - rapidly. Final words: 28 Days Later is still the supreme master of the fast-running-whatever-flesh-craving-maniacs-genre. This one is a nice try, but not more. First 3 quarters get 7-8 from me, the last quarter only 3 makes 6 in my own bad math.

Zombie mushrooms

[nickboldrini · 6/10 · 1 September 2019]

Having the zombie disease spread as a Fungus is the main innovation of this film, but apart from the themes are similar - human zombie hybrid who may save the world; mad scientist willing to sacrifice everyone and everything to find the cure, military using dubious methods to control the infection. But that makes it sound quite generic, when actually there is a lot more going on here. This is one of the genres "quiet" zombie films where frenetic action and fighting for survival are not the main drivers of the film, but more an exploration of the central characters journey. The main character - one of the the afore-mentioned hybrids - is both terrifying, but also childishly disarming, with a cold logical approach to the situation, mixed with a child like playfullness. its well done, and well acted, and is a slow burner which will stay with you longer than some of the all action forggetable zombie films.

The Last of Us

[Prismark10 · 7/10 · 19 January 2017]

The opening scenes of The Girl with all the Gifts throw you if you know little about the film. Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is a young polite girl in a room that looks like a cell. In the morning she manacles herself into a wheel chair while armed soldiers push her to her classroom lessons along with other children in a similar state. Melanie remains unfailingly polite and we also realise she is clever.

Are these children gifted? Part of some experiment? Why are the soldiers armed and remain vigilant?

We soon find out when one soldier bursts in and rubs his arm with his spit. It looks like these children have cannibalistic tendencies, we already see Melanie given food which consisted of worms.

The film is a take on the Zombie movie, society has collapsed because of a fungal infection of the brain turning people into zombies and it is evolving. These children were rescued from a hospital as babies and raised by the army. Dr Caroline Caldwell (Glenn Close) is the scientist who sees Melanie and others to be experimented so she can find a cure for this fungus.

Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton) is the teacher who wants to protect Melanie from the soldiers and Dr Caldwell. She seems to have bonded with Melanie and even Melanie shows a protective attitude towards her even when she needs to feed.

When the army base is in invaded by the zombies this three along with some soldiers escape and head for safety to another mobile unit. However it is clear society has broken down, the zombies are going through an evolution process and Dr Caldwell might be too late to develop a vaccine.

This is probably the most striking British zombie film since 28 Days Later. It is a low budget film shot mainly in and around the Midlands. Director Colm McCarthy makes an interesting opening to this film and best use of the small budget for some special effects shots. He keeps the story human, the development of the relationship between Melanie and Justineau. Dr Caldwell supplies the scientific explanations but the story dos slow down in parts over halfway through.

A wonderful central performance from Sennia Nanua who shows she is a talent to watch.

intriguing start but needs an exposition

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 25 May 2017]

Melanie is one of the children carefully restrained in a military bunker. They are feared by the soldiers guarding them such as Sgt. Eddie Parks (Paddy Considine). Their teacher Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton) is touched by Melanie. The kids are actually experiments being conducted by Dr. Caroline Caldwell (Glenn Close). The world has been devastated by a fungus which turns people into mindless killing zombies called Hungries.

The first twenty minutes start off great like an intriguing Twilight Zone episode. There is a point in the movie where an imaginative exposition is needed by Caldwell to explain the world and her experiment. I'm reminded of Hammond from Jurassic Park. When Caldwell brings in Melanie tied down on the gurney, it's the perfect spot where she could have done a presentation to a bunch of military brass. Instead, the audience has to piece this world together bit by bit. I do have problems with some of the pieces. They don't all fit together neatly. There is a final reveal that stretches the fit to its limit. There is a compelling battle for the humanity of Melanie between Miss Justineau and Caldwell but it needs some better writing. Despite the movie's shortcomings, it takes an interesting spin on the standard zombie genre.

Highly recommended, and vastly superior to most of the genre.

[Artless_Dodger · 8/10 · 27 September 2016]

Excellent performances and interesting source material (MR Carey adapting his own novel), plus imaginative direction (Scottish director Colm McCarthy), create a chilling sci-fi tale of hungries (zombies) versus humanity.

The opening sequence sets the tone. Melanie, a young, polite, and courteous girl manacles herself into a wheel chair. She seems entirely innocent and harmless, yet her captors fear otherwise. She and other children, each similarly restrained, are given an armed escort to a classroom. It's an arresting start and it grabs our attention. Sennia Nanua plays Melanie and the story revolves around her. We watch society collapsing through her eyes, see her threatened by the human beings around her, and fear for her. We watch her do terrible things, and yet we root for her. Everything is uncertain. Nothing is as it seems. It's a brilliant performance from a new talent, and it serves the film perfectly.

Melanie is surrounded by contrasting emotions from those nearest to her. Gemma Arterton is excellent as protective and caring psychologist/teacher Helen Justineau, fiercely defending Melanie against the machinations of Dr Caroline Caldwell (Glenn Close) who sees Melanie as a specimen to be dissected. Paddy Considine convinces as Sergeant Eddie Parks, a tough, no- nonsense soldier fighting a losing battle.

Colm McCarthy brings this all together superbly, belying the film's modest budget. Striking visuals and frenetic action are never allowed to overwhelm the characters, who take centre stage. And at it's heart is Melanie. Confusing, ambivalent, terrifying, lovable Melanie. It's a wonderful turn from Sennia Nanua.

Highly recommended, and vastly superior to most of the genre.

Film as Virus to Fight Us

[tedg · 19 October 2017]

Zombie films have always been about social analogy: AIDS, immigration, Islam!, climate change, AI revolt.

Regardless, it is always followed the western form of good guys, bad guys. Always. This one twists that from the very first moments which focuses on an appealing preadolescent girl in a hostile environment.

It helps to know — as I did not — that the disorder here is based on a real insect fungus.

What worked:

— The girl actress is fragile, grabbing all our native sympathetic pulls. Why this works is because of many shameful assumptions we carry: slight, submissive but sunny girl of color. A cooperating captive where the captive dynamics align with our strongest demons.

— The Emma Atherton character as teacher is similar captive, unable to escape because of her emotional connection to what we know she thinks are the accidentally oppressed. The chemistry between these two is strong, evoking imagined backstories.

— The sound/score is amazingly effective.

— The surrounding chaos when attacked was well choreographed.

— The twist at the end grabbed me viscerally. The trick isn't new of course, using a film to reinforce an identity the viewer grasps, then subverting that alliance. What made this is so effective is that the genre has such strong momentum, and that the identity we had pulled from us was so fundamental. It isn't our membership in a tribe that is stolen, but our excuse for living at all.

What did not work for me:

— Amazingly, it was the Glen Close character. She has the job we find in uncinematic scifi films where she has to explain things. As a character, she seemed superfluous; so her role as explainer really is obvious and off-putting because she isn't in the story so much as between it and us.

— The sets. Here's the thing. Its been ten years — we assume — since the pandemic. I know that the tendency is to show desolation visually, with extreme degradation, but the most effective scenes for me were those with ordinary environments and no ordinary motion.

— The makeup. Someone decided to use the fungal notion but reference the old zombie tradition of rotting flesh. Can't have both.

— The one joke: "I already had a cat." When you pull something like this, you acknowledge that there is a viewer to get the joke, and that you are invested in being playful with him/her. The character is taken out of the story and redefined as an entertainer for your pleasure. It breaks the story when it has the intent of this one.

— The eating. If you decide to show a human fighting being devoured by beasts, then it should be as terrifying as the victim has it. This was almost a puppet show with carefully daubed chinblood shown afterward. I know it is a trope of the genre, like a Hong Kong martial arts fight where a single hit of a sword bloodlessly makes the bad guy fall dead instantly. But it works against the collective terror of the end.

The first step towards the new order after a great disaster.

[Reno-Rangan · 7/10 · 24 July 2017]

A dystopian British film. Zombie theme based on the book of the same name. The story of a few survivours, but all the focus was on the little girl. Thematically a very familiar film, but the storyline from the characters' perspective makes it unique. Nice cast, but it was not about Gemma Arterton. Her part was small, despite she can be seen in the film's entire stretch.

At the beginning, I did not know what's happening. Only after the second stage of the story commence, most of the doubts were cleared. But again, till the final scene, the film holds us with the strong progression. In some parts, it looks silly, but makes sense on the basis of its all the developments.

After their enclosure was broke, a group of survivours roams around the London looking for the food and the safe place. They manage to get away in some of the close encounters with the running deads. But how long it goes like that becomes the question. Besides, they divide when the girl comes into their topic. How the story ends was with a small twist.

There were some good zombie films in the last two years. This is one of those. If you like zombie theme, you might find it a refreshing. Not the storywise, but the characters. The little kid was so good. They have picked the right one for that role. Looks like it could be a cult film. Ends high, but I don't think there will be any sequel or prequel in the future. Definitely worth a try.

7/10

But it started out so great...

[paul_haakonsen · 5/10 · 15 April 2017]

I had been warmly recommended that I watch "The Girl with All the Gifts" given my love for the zombie genre, and it was a movie that had somewhat managed to fly under my radar, for some reason.

So I took the advice to heart and sat down to watch the movie. And I will say that the movie does start out quite alright, especially because the audience is sort of kept in the dark as director Colm McCarthy slowly and steadily builds up the story. And that uncertainty and only speculating at what is going on really helps to add drama to the movie.

Then the movie takes a turn into a zombie movie with the outbreak and overrunning of the military compound. And this is where the movie really picked up pace for me and where it was the most interesting.

However, it all came crashing down so hard, so very, very hard. And it came at the point where the children from "Beyond Thunderdome" made an appearance. That was just idiotic and such a poor turn of events to the story. And that totally left the movie in shattered pieces, and it never recovered from that blow. From that point on and to the end of the movie, it was just a slippery downhill slope that the movie had no chance of getting back up from.

Now, for a zombie movie, then "The Girl with All the Gifts" was sort of testing the waters with new ideas, and for most parts it did manage to prove potential and would have pulled it off, except that the movie took a critical hit and never recovered from it.

The special effects were good, and they did carry the movie a good long way. That is a given for a zombie movie, because special effects and whether or not they are believable or impressive is a make or break thing for the zombie genre, as it is less forgiving than most other genres.

"The Girl with All the Gifts" started out with lots of potential and was fast on the climb, but then it was all too soon and too tragically cut short by some laughable and idiotic turn of events and ill-thought ideas that were brought to the script. I can only imagine that they were concocted through some fever-stricken haze.

And the end of the movie, well I will not even comment on that. It was just so idiotic that it doesn't even deserve the time or effort.

This 2016 movie ends up with a barely mediocre rating in my opinion, narrowly managing to climb up to a, and I am being more than generous here, 5 out of 10 star rating.

Great zombie movie that's not really about zombies

[moviebuffchick · 9/10 · 13 May 2017]

I'm really aggravated by people who think this was a "boring zombie movie" that "wasn't scary." Look... the movie is called THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS. It's a movie about a girl... who happens to be a zombie... and her desire to come to terms with who she is, and her right to live in spite of it. NO it's not full of scares and gory zombie kills... that's not what it's about. If you can appreciate a good story about a little girl who happens to be a zombie then you'll see the beauty in this film. There still GREAT zombie action though... It was very well done, had an excellent cast, and Sennia Nanua shined.

Full commentary WITH spoilers on YouTube/Twitter @moviebuffchick1

https://youtu.be/wwm1nWFOwBI

Read the book first

[kerioke · 7/10 · 14 May 2019]

I've read the book and also the second "the boy on the bridge" and only found later that it was made into a motion picture. Having enjoyed the books so much I was curious to see whether the movie followed the same storyine, character descriptions, etc...

Having read the story first I was a bit disappointed with the film. The film is still great but you won't get the whole story in a film. It would have been better done if it was released as 10 episodes or something.

I'm still giving 7 stars as it was still good to watch.

This movie took a grand theme and turned it into a small, squalid cliché.

[riiverofdreams · 3/10 · 23 July 2017]

If you've read the book you'll find that the movie is, at heart, a completely different story. And I don't mean minor changes like reversing the races of Melanie and Miss Justineau. I mean deep, fundamental changes that alter the entire message of the story; changes that turn the hero into the villain and the villain into a pathetic tragic hero, and turn a story about hope coming in strange packages into something entirely different.

The book is--in spite of its setting and genre--a deep and thought-provoking look at what it really means to be human. The movie is not. It's just another zombie movie with a (not even too surprising, in the context of the movie) twist.

This movie wastes the abilities of a very talented group of actors. Melanie and Miss Justineau have a bit more depth than the other characters, but Seargent Parks--who is very deep and well-drawn in the book--is reduced to a cardboard-cutout of a soldier. Gallagher--also a multi-faceted character with his own moral message in the novel--becomes nothing more than a means of bringing us to the movie's climax which itself is wildly different than the book. Dr. Carter is humanized in ways totally at odds with the book, and in fact becomes the "hero" of the story, if you can call anyone a hero. And Melanie...well, in the end Melanie is cast as the villain, performing roughly the same actions as she did in the book but with totally different motivations.

All in all, it was a huge disappointment. I was willing to deal with many major plot cuts--I understand that movies simply cannot fit all the material of novel-length works into their time-frame. What I was not willing to accept was the complete reversal of the message of the book...which was this: Pandora opened the box containing all the ills of the world. But she didn't do it as vengeance or out of a feeling of moral superiority...she did it out of pure curiosity. And the result was horrific. She unleashed plague. She unleashed and pestilence and death and destruction. But...she also released hope.

This movie took a grand theme and turned it into a small, squalid cliché. If you loved the book, don't bother. (But do look for the cast, who did an amazing job with the little they had to work with--in other roles.)

Tense horror; plot holes perhaps, but covered by a raft of strong performances (SPOILERS)

[bob the moo · 8 January 2017]

I didn't know a great deal about this film before watching; I knew it was some form of zombie horror and that it was not a 'normal' genre film. The film reveals this in the first 15 minutes, with an element of mystery before the nature of the children is revealed. Not long after that the military base is overrun (everything is in these films), and a strong group head out with one of the children in their care. As they try to get to another point of safety, the child tries to come to terms with who she is.

The film is good in many ways, and indeed as Theo noted in his review there has been a lot of hype around this, even if it did not translate into success at the box office. The film is an odd mix; on one hand we have the usual zombie situations, but then on the other we have interesting moral situations and items for thought regarding the interactions of the group, and the role of Melanie. To deal with the zombie movie element, it is effective but yet also very familiar for the most part. The scenes are tense, horrific, and effective – although it is a bit erratic in the 'rules' for its zombies, and it doesn't really do anything too different until near the end. The use of locations is really good – well selected and dressed (although depressing to note that one of them is in Stoke, not too far from where I live!).

The more interesting elements of the film involve the idea of the children being infected but yet able to talk and operate as 'humans'. Melanie engages as a character and adds an emotional element for the viewer and the other characters. The film goes to an interesting place in some ways, but then at the same time does not totally make the most of the ideas and potential allegories. What makes the film work despite these weaknesses, is the quality of the delivery. The direction, use of location, and creation of tension, is generally very good. The choice of composer was a mixed bag for me; it is effectively creepy, but at the same time it distracted me a little by how similar it was to that used in Channel 4's Utopia (for good reason, it is the same guy).

The performances are where the strength lies. With the talent in the cast it is even more impressive that it is the child actress Nanua that stands out. Okay her character is perhaps a bit too knowing and sharp, but this does not take away from how good she is. There is a lot of feeling and understanding in her performance, even more impressive to know she is 12 years old. Close is equally as good as the flipside of the character coin; very cold but giving the viewer enough to understand why. Arterton is good even if her character is a bit too clean cut; Considine is quality as ever.

Overall it is an effective horror even if it has genre clichés and plot holes along the way. The delivery and performances go a long way to making these less impacting.

Hungries

[ThomasDrufke · 7/10 · 19 November 2017]

Before The Waking Dead came along, people thought the zombie subgenre was dead in the water. The zombie films for the most part just weren't able to capture the right tone and essence. So even though there's been a million of them and most of them are much of the same thing, I always appreciate the ones that bring something new and fresh to the genre. The Girl With All the Gifts does just that.

The British post-apocalyptic film takes place after most of the world has been decimated to due to an unknown fungal disease, with only a few military bases left. The twist here is that on this military base is a group of second generation children who are infected with the disease but are under control of their senses for the most part. That is, when they aren't smelling human flesh.

After several life threatening sequences, a few soldiers, a teacher, and one of those second generation children (named Melanie) embark on a trek to get to the next safe zone, with their base being overrun by zombies (or hungries as they call them). Melanie, a seemingly more intelligent and aware child, forms a special bond with the teacher, named Helen Justineau and played by Gemma Arterton. This is the one human connection that I think is worth caring about. Since you don't get much backstory on the soldiers, including one played well by Paddy Considine, you are almost forced into caring for the two. And that's the one thing I was constantly hoping we would get more of, character depth and backstory. It just becomes difficult to figure out who you're going to root for when you don't have much in way of their backstory to think about.

With that said, I appreciated that this film involved a different approach to the zombie genre. Yes, there is the subplot involving someone looking for a cure (which is always something that comes up) but the more calculated approach to the pacing, and reserved display of gore, The Girl With All the Gifts feels like a fresh entry into the genre. Heck, have we ever had our lead character be an second generation infected child? Just by those standards this was something original.

7.1/10

Original, uncompromising and grim

[jon-c-ison · 7/10 · 2 August 2019]

Certainly not your typical cliched zombie flick, it pulls no punches, is well acted and tells a well paced story with a good premise. Thoughtful portrayal of humanity. A movie with well thought-out ideas and integrity. The first 20 minutes is absolutely compelling, the rest ... not exactly a feel-good movie, but unflinchingly remaining true to its foundational ideas. Strong characters, superb music and great potrayal of overgrown post-apocalypyse city.

What a unique flick..

[TalkiesAndJabberwocky · 7/10 · 30 July 2018]

The Girl With All The Gifts - This pulled me in just from the imagery of the muzzle alone. I immediately thought of Fido and hoped for another good film with a unique approach to the undead. I got what I was hoping for, and then some. This is not a zombie flick filled with action or even that much gore, but the character development, the post-apocalyptic world, and characters are all worth checking out.

Different Enough

[nowego · 7/10 · 24 June 2018]

This movie is best going into with as little fore knowledge as possible, because when someone tells you the genre of this movie, your preconceptions will almost certainly skew your expectations and experience.

This is not a typical movie in its genre. It's a lot smarter and more thought provoking. While there are thrills, and lots of suspense, it's done in a much better way that is of service to the characters and the story, creating a slow build of dread rather than cheap jump scares.

A very good movie with excellent acting and casting. Sennia Nanua, who plays Melanie also did a phenomenal job, Gemma Arterton was solid as the protective and caring teacher Helen Justineau. Glenn Close was also good as the Doctor prepared to do almost anything to find a cure for the disease.

The whole cast did a very good job and the music complimented rather than overpowered the movie.

Worth seeing and I have watched it more than once.

A Surprisingly Fresh Addition to the Zombie Genre

[PyroSikTh · 8/10 · 28 September 2016]

The film opens with Melanie, a very polite young girl, strapping herself into a wheelchair at gunpoint. She and many other children are wheeled off to a makeshift classroom where they're taught the periodic table and Greek mythology, before they're each returned to their individual cells. Melanie also gets little logic problems from one of the doctors. She's treated with fear, curiosity, and love from various different military personel. It's not long before her curiosity gets the better of her and she finds herself topside in a military base surrounded by hungry hordes, strapped to an examination table. Who she is, why she's important, and why she's treated the way she is is left mysterious for quite some time.

The zombies themselves take a leaf out of The Last of Us. They're caused by a fungal infection that completely takes over the brain and replaces it with the insatiable need to eat. Their primary sense is smell, allowing the soldiers to mask themselves with a blocking gel and enabling them to carefully navigate through the hordes without being detected. Being a fungal infection though, there's more than just one stage, and the next stage holds the potential for the end of humanity. As zombie concepts go, this one is certainly one of the creepiest, and actually has a precedent in nature as well.

I was hugely surprised by the visual sufficiency of The Girl with All the Gifts. I figured it would just be another low-budget English production. Okay, that's exactly what it is, but it doesn't mean they scrimped out on the film's visual quality. The CGI present is subtle and sparingly used, preferring to use and merge in-camera footage instead. The apocalyptic landscape on display is one of the most convincing apocalyptic landscapes I've seen, created by putting the overgrown scenery of Chernobyl across London's skyline. It's obviously been a number of years since the initial outbreak, so the city is overrun with trees and shrubbery. The cinematography is great as well though, with some inspiring imagery created with interesting uses of composition and lighting. I wouldn't go so far as to say it looks particularly artistic, but it certainly has a good go at it. For such a bleak story in such a bleak setting, the movie looks really good (in such a bleak kind of way).

The music as well goes a long way to setting the scene, driven by haunting theremins as they swell and slide, backed by a simplistic orchestral arrangement. It's unlike any soundtrack I've heard before, but fits the movie so well. I was actually disappointed that I couldn't find it to listen to while I wrote this review. It knows when it be unsettling and when to be emotional, and at times even uses what you wouldn't expect to give a different angle to the scene in question.

The Girl with All the Gifts is a solid movie in it's own right, but it stands amongst the very best zombie movies. It certainly gives 28 Days Later... a run for its money, both in it's use of it's low- budget and it's re-invention of the zombie trope. It's another fresh new take on a genre perpetually at risk of going stale, but finding itself constantly injected with more creativity and imagination. I give The Girl with All the Gifts a solid 8/10, and would absolutely recommend it.

Quality and different zombie film

[verminhater · 7/10 · 16 April 2017]

It's a zombie film but with enough about it to be not only different from the bulk of the rest but much better too. There's essentially two types of zombie here. There's the regular type and a group of kids who are half way between zombie and human and are the subject of the film.

There's good acting from the cast with the main character of the half zombie girl played by Sennia Nanua the stand out. The sets where nature is reclaiming urbanisation are very good too. All in the movie draws you in to actually caring for the characters. Sadly this is a trait all too missing from many films.

The ending is well disguised and I'll not spoil it here for the viewer. All in a quality film with a good story, well acted and well told. Recommended.

It's OK, I guess.

[springs37923 · 5/10 · 1 January 2017]

I don't really know what to write other than this is another zombie flesh eaters flick that's only mediocre. I don't get the other reviews that say it's so "brilliant".

I, myself, think it's slow moving and boring. There are no good special effects and it just seems low budget. It's not a bad movie, just not a very good one IMO. We have our own tastes so YMMV.

Also, the person who said this is the best movie since 28 days later... Makes me wonder what movie they were watching. This has nothing on that movie.

I gave this a 5/10. If you're bored and want to kill some time watching a movie of this genera, then by all means go for it. It's worth a watch, but IMO it's nothing special at all.

A gift for zombie fans.

[BA_Harrison · 8/10 · 3 January 2017]

The Girl With All The Gifts is yet another entry in the ever popular yet often uninspired infected/zombie genre, but it's one that actually manages to be refreshingly original, refusing to follow many of the rules established since Romero brought us Night of the Living Dead.

The film opens in an underground military facility where a group of children are being detained, locked in cells during the night, and strapped into wheelchairs to be educated during the day by teacher Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton). But these are no ordinary kids: they are infected with a pathogen that causes them to crave human flesh; despite this fact, however, they are still capable of rational thought, with Melanie (Sennia Nanua) being a particularly bright student.

Dr. Caroline Caldwell (Glenn Close) believes that the children can be used to create an anti-virus for the disease that has ravaged mankind, but before she gets a chance to prove her theories, the base is over-run by 'hungries' (as the infected are known). Justineau, Caldwell, and Melanie narrowly escape the ravenous hordes, joining forces with Sgt. Eddie Parks (Paddy Considine) and his men on a hazardous journey to safety.

With its cognisant second-generation zombie kids, born of infected mothers, this film quickly distances itself from the countless zombie films out there, but the film also has several other cool ideas that mark it as different: the humans can make themselves invisible to the hungries through the use of a special gel that disguises their scent; the pathogen mutates, turning the zombies into huge plant-like structures bearing seed pods that, if opened, will make the virus airborne; the humans are attacked by feral second-generation children who can use weapons and lay traps.

Best of all, the ending of the film questions humanity's right to survival, and whether, when the time comes, we should accept our fate and allow a new race to take our place. It's a thought provoking way to wrap up a neat little film.

Fun fungal funeral

[MadamWarden · 7/10 · 15 October 2019]

Definitely a different take on the zombie apocalypse. Some very cool concepts, amazing set design, and some good acting performances.

The child gang didn't work for me but overall a pretty good zombie movie!

Reason for DVD release

[rsj_131 · 4/10 · 27 April 2017]

If you're like me and base a lot off of previews then you'd know this looked great regardless of mixed reviews. Well, this one is an example of what could have been great. Plot was going well and so was intensity until the last 20 minutes, where the film fell completely flat. Like they ran out of time and script. What were they thinking?! Last portion of the film was a mix of walking dead, Peter Pan , and just a blob of crap. It was random and senseless in the last 10 minutes. Just stupid. And the very last scene tried to transfer the over all feel of the film from horror/thriller to happily ever after. Felt more like a long, dark episode of Saturday night live