MAGGIE (15, 95 mins) Thriller/Horror/Romance. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin, Joely Richardson, Douglas M Griffin, JD Evermore, Jodie Moore, Bruce Romero, Raeden Greer, Aiden Flowers, Carsen Flowers. Director: Henry Hobson
RATING: THREE STARS
EVER since director Victor Halperin reanimated the dearly departed in the 1932 thriller White Zombie, the shuffling undead have become a staple of the horror genre. George A Romero popularised zombies as voracious, flesh-hungry predators in his 1968 cult classic Night Of The Living Dead, inspiring sequels, remakes and gore-slathered imitators.
Maggie unfolds in a bleak, colour-bleached future ravaged by a deadly contagion, which takes six to eight weeks from infection to transform a healthy human host into a monstrous husk, capable of spreading the virus with a single bite.
There are explosions of bloody violence in Henry Hobson's post-apocalyptic thriller, and one wince-inducing moment with a kitchen knife, but the writer-director chooses to focus on the emotional devastation wrought by such an outbreak rather than the frenzied battle for survival.
By refracting a global disaster through the eyes of one beleaguered family, the director and screenwriter John Scott III create moments of pathos and heartbreak that will be familiar to fans of the TV series The Walking Dead.
Their hero is widower Wade Vogel (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who spends two weeks searching for missing daughter Maggie (Abigail Breslin) in cities overrun by the Necroambulist virus. Wade eventually tracks her down at a hospital, where she has been admitted with a bite.
"She's going to show more signs of aggression," explains a medic. "She's going to lose her appetite then get it back again."
Wade spirits Maggie home to the family ranch to enjoy what little time they have left before the virus takes hold and the local sheriff oversees her transfer into quarantine.
Maggie's step-siblings Bobby (Aiden Flowers) and Molly (Carsen Flowers) are sent to live with an aunt, but her stepmother Caroline (Joely Richardson) remains. As the girl's predatory instincts take hold, Caroline urges Wade to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Maggie is blessed with one of Schwarzenegger's best performances, courtesy of a script that is lean on dialogue and heavy on close-ups. The Austrian oak is solid and Breslin wrings out tears as a young woman who realises the threat she poses with each pulse of infected blood in her veins.
By reducing the gore to a minimum, Hobson starves his film of intense visceral thrills, but dramatic momentum remains slow and steady.
