The sense of déjà-vu is unfortunately oppressive in this bleak, dispiriting and derivative zombie movie in which the sudden roar and lunge of the infected ones is usually represented with a digital stab of sound to make you jump. There are, however, some interesting political metaphors. The setting is Ireland, after a zombie-plague outbreak has been brought under control. The affected people have been cured and are allowed to live more or less normal lives, though they retain a memory of the awful things they have done. A minority are still raving, snarling and frothing in secure cells, awaiting probable extermination. But the cured are regarded with even more suspicion: as a guilty group who have avoided paying for their sins on medical grounds and might conceivably revert to their old zombie ways. The zombies are like a mutinous minority with moderate and extremist wings, cured and uncured.
Sam Keeley plays Senan, who has been permitted to live with his widowed sister-in-law Abbie, played by Ellen Page, whose plaintive earnestness is a bit unconvincing in this context. Tom Vaughan-Lawlor plays the gaunt and menacing ex-zombie Conor who effectively becomes a radical agitator. My tolerance for zombie acting and zombie drama in the style of Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later is never all that high, and the tropes are a bit familiar here.
