After spending weeks on the road in search of his teenage daughter Maggie, Wade finds her at the hospital, quarantined. Maggie is infected by the outbreak that causes humans to transform into Zombies, but in the world of Henry Hobson's film, it takes several days to weeks, depending on the person, for the individual to lose their humanity. Having his daughter released under his care, Hank brings Maggie home to spend her remaining days with her family. Anyone who goes into Henry Hobson's Maggie expecting a typical zombie horror film is bound to be disappointed. Maggie is a film that uses the tropes of the Zombie genre to create a small, intimate film that explores the emotional effect of the loss of a loved one, the trouble in saying goodbye, and the importance of moving on. Maggie is a clever film that uses the zombie aspects as simply a layer on its sad story, getting strong performances out of both Arnold Schwartzneggar and Abigail Breslin. The film explores the idea of one knowing they are slowly turning into a zombie, with Breslin's performance being very much about a girl who knows she is dying. Wade is a character who has already lost his wife, and Maggie's mother, struggling to accept the reality of the situation. Even as a viewer you know he is simply delaying the inevitable, but when he gets physical with a police officer who wants to take Maggie into the quarantine, you can't help but root for Hank. There is another powerful sequence where Hank is forced to kill two neighbors who have already turned. They are clearly zombies but Hank is still convinced there is something still behind their eyes, a subconscious hope that is related to his inability to accept his daughter's situation. The film's screenplay does show moments of oversentimentality, but overall Maggie manages to stay relatively understated. Atmospheric with a simple emotional story, Henry Hobson's Maggie is a welcome addition to the zombie genre that pays little interest in the violence or gore.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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