The Horror Show
The Cured
by David Freyne
The Cured is a zombie horror/drama set four years after The Maze Virus ravaged the world, but particularly took its toll on the country of Ireland. With echoes of 2013’s zombie series In The Flesh as well as the film The Returned, this movie didn’t exactly tread on any fresh territory. However, being that I’m a fan of all things zom-poc, I looked forward to watching it. The last zombie movie I watched was a dreadful remake that I won’t even name, The Cured, though, was far from dreadful and though slow paced at times, was a welcome addition to the zombie genre.
Ellen Page plays Abbie, an American woman raising her son in a post-outbreak world. Senan (Sam Keeley), Abbie’s brother in law, is a recently cured infected who’s been released back into a society that doesn’t accept him. Plagued by nightmares of the past four years, Senan struggles to settle back in with a family who doesn’t know the horrible things that he’s done while the other cured, including pack leader Conor (Tom Vaughn-Lawlor), think he belongs with them: his real family.
With a strong, dramatic plot that was even depressing at times, we are treated to gory flashbacks in the form of Senan’s nightmares, slowly revealing his past atrocities. The story inches forward, only unraveling the mysteries of the cured bit by bit until the high tension between human and infected finally reaches its boiling point. From the start, I’m sure you can imagine how a story involving 5,000 uncured infected still locked up in a bunker might play out, and that’s fine, I didn’t go in to this film with the expectation that I was going to be blown away by some outrageous plot twist.
I think the social issues in the film were executed well and incorporated into the story to mirror reality in an excellent way. Think of the refugee crisis and all that’s going on in our world, now picture them as former zombies. They aren’t accepted by the locals, they’re seen as dangerous, some are seen as terrorists even though they aren’t, and people just can’t seem to find a way to accept that sometimes a person isn’t entirely in control of their past, just as the infected weren’t in control of theirs.
As always, Ellen Page is wonderful and I’m happy to have seen her in two horror films released in the last year. (Though The Cured is much better than Flatliners was.) Sam Keeley and Tom Vaughn-Lawlor had great on-screen chemistry and watching as their bond diminished was fantastic.
I think whether or not you’re a fan of zombie films you’ll enjoy this if you are looking for a sadder sort of horror film with realistic elements that will remind you exactly why we’re all glad The Maze Virus is just a product of fiction.
Stevie Kopas, HMS
The Horror Show Menu.