BFI London Film Festival: The Cured

The Cured
Directed by David Freyne
Starring Ellen Page, Sam Keeley and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor
Screening at LFF October 12th, 14th, 2017

by Joanna Orland

The Cured sucks the fun out of the zombie genre with a dire and dark social exploration. The MAZE virus has plagued humans, but there is now a cure – those who have been cured are not fully integrated back into society as prejudice causes doubts about their humanity. The film examines social attitudes to marginalized groups, as a political allegory to the Irish troubles. It’s all a bit too grand in scope for a film that hasn’t even mastered the thrill of zombies.

The film feels very dreary and drab, and even flesh-eating zombie attacks are laughable rather than frightening or fun. Everyone seems depressed rather than fearful, the stakes don’t seem high enough as those cured of the MAZE virus are classified as a terrorist organization. Straying into the silly, the film feels juvenile in its execution, albeit the premise holds a lot of potential.

Director David Freyne fleshes out very little in his characters, and The Cured feels more like a film student exercise than a passionately made project. Zombies have no bite in this socially aware, yet shallow horror.