Receiving his daughter Maggie's message, Wade Vogel retrieved her back to their house. The doctor releases her as a favor to his friend Verne, saying that Maggie is already on the initial stages of infection of a zombie virus. Wade sends his other two kids away. One day while playing outside, Maggie slipped and fall. She breaks a finger easily due to the infection. She cuts the rest of it and runs away and meets two neighbors Nathan and his daughter Julia, who have totally turned into zombies but still docile. Wade comes and whacks them. Police come but they don't blame Wade, but they warn him to bring Maggie to quarantine when the time comes. Late at night, Bonnie, Nathan's wife comes demanding to see Nathan's body. In the morning the police evacuate the bodies and arrests Bonnie. Wade visits the now empty house of Nathan, Bonnie and Julia and gets burdened by thoughts.
Wade takes Maggie for follow up medical check with Dr. Verne, who is also a close friend of Wade's. He tells Wade the options as the time comes when Maggie turns; bring her to quarantine, give the medications the patients getting at quarantine which is extremely painful, or make it quick and end Maggie's life himself. Maggie and Wade have a talk, remembering Sara, Wade's first wife and Maggie's mom. A school friend takes Maggie to a hangout where she meets Trent, a fellow infected. They have a talk about the moral dilemma of keeping infected people off quarantine. A few days later Trent calls Maggie to come to his house as his father is surrendering him for quarantine. Trent eventually gets forced by police to be moved to quarantine.
Going home, Maggie's body starts to give in to the infection's cannibalistic nature and she eats a caged fox but soon regains consciousness and gets terrified about it. Wade's wife leaves them disagreeing Wade's decision to keep Maggie off quarantine. Maggie now turns in and out of her consciousness and getting zombie symptoms. One night Maggie wakes up with her infection getting worse and she sniffs around the seemingly sleeping Wade. Wade has his gun ready but decides to wait. She kisses her forehead and goes away. Wade opens his eyes and readies his shotgun, which was missing its shell. Maggie goes to the roof and drops herself down.
This movie nicely presents a story about a zombie apocalypse that really feels different from any other zombie movies. Other movies seem to be trapped between the mainstream hack-and-slash action with runner zombies and the even more common variations of horror with walker zombies. But all those movies have one thing in common, the time for the infected to fully turning into zombies is relatively short, at around one week as the longest.
But by lengthening the turn time and making the infection grows as stages, the movie exposes a new and relatively unexplored angle in zombie themed movies which is the drama about moral contradiction between a survivor's love for his infected kindred and the impending danger of keeping close an infected person who may turn into a zombie at any moment.
The movie nicely puts this focus into its whole duration, maximizing the support of the bleak low almost contrast coloration. The story is made very much personal by the constant use of head-shot angle and zoom-ins. Yet the movie maintains a nice distance between the typical zombie movies by limiting the encounter with the fully turned zombies. The relative scarcity of dialog lines also helps the movie to maintain its overall mood of anxiety and desperation.
The acting overall is a good job for me. I am quite surprised to see Arnold Schwarzenegger managing to capture enough character for his role as a protective father. The accent sure didn't help at all in obtaining the authentic Midwestern feel for the character, but the movie's scarce dialog still makes his performance looks well enough. Abigail Breslin did very well in portraying her character's desperation and fear. Her mannerisms and body language played a very big part in this movie since her close ups fill most of her screen time.
A score of 6 out of 10 is from me for Maggie (2015). A recommendation only goes out for those of you who are curious enough about a new take on zombie themes or simply want to see Arnold Schwarzenegger play in a zombie movie. The movie is quite entertaining for me, but I don't recommend it if you're looking for a typical zombie movie.
Wade takes Maggie for follow up medical check with Dr. Verne, who is also a close friend of Wade's. He tells Wade the options as the time comes when Maggie turns; bring her to quarantine, give the medications the patients getting at quarantine which is extremely painful, or make it quick and end Maggie's life himself. Maggie and Wade have a talk, remembering Sara, Wade's first wife and Maggie's mom. A school friend takes Maggie to a hangout where she meets Trent, a fellow infected. They have a talk about the moral dilemma of keeping infected people off quarantine. A few days later Trent calls Maggie to come to his house as his father is surrendering him for quarantine. Trent eventually gets forced by police to be moved to quarantine.
Going home, Maggie's body starts to give in to the infection's cannibalistic nature and she eats a caged fox but soon regains consciousness and gets terrified about it. Wade's wife leaves them disagreeing Wade's decision to keep Maggie off quarantine. Maggie now turns in and out of her consciousness and getting zombie symptoms. One night Maggie wakes up with her infection getting worse and she sniffs around the seemingly sleeping Wade. Wade has his gun ready but decides to wait. She kisses her forehead and goes away. Wade opens his eyes and readies his shotgun, which was missing its shell. Maggie goes to the roof and drops herself down.
This movie nicely presents a story about a zombie apocalypse that really feels different from any other zombie movies. Other movies seem to be trapped between the mainstream hack-and-slash action with runner zombies and the even more common variations of horror with walker zombies. But all those movies have one thing in common, the time for the infected to fully turning into zombies is relatively short, at around one week as the longest.
But by lengthening the turn time and making the infection grows as stages, the movie exposes a new and relatively unexplored angle in zombie themed movies which is the drama about moral contradiction between a survivor's love for his infected kindred and the impending danger of keeping close an infected person who may turn into a zombie at any moment.
The movie nicely puts this focus into its whole duration, maximizing the support of the bleak low almost contrast coloration. The story is made very much personal by the constant use of head-shot angle and zoom-ins. Yet the movie maintains a nice distance between the typical zombie movies by limiting the encounter with the fully turned zombies. The relative scarcity of dialog lines also helps the movie to maintain its overall mood of anxiety and desperation.
The acting overall is a good job for me. I am quite surprised to see Arnold Schwarzenegger managing to capture enough character for his role as a protective father. The accent sure didn't help at all in obtaining the authentic Midwestern feel for the character, but the movie's scarce dialog still makes his performance looks well enough. Abigail Breslin did very well in portraying her character's desperation and fear. Her mannerisms and body language played a very big part in this movie since her close ups fill most of her screen time.
A score of 6 out of 10 is from me for Maggie (2015). A recommendation only goes out for those of you who are curious enough about a new take on zombie themes or simply want to see Arnold Schwarzenegger play in a zombie movie. The movie is quite entertaining for me, but I don't recommend it if you're looking for a typical zombie movie.