The Girl with All the Gifts

The Girl with All the Gifts is a post-apocalyptic drama directed by Colm McCarthy. The film, which is adapted from Mike Carey’s novel of the same name, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and stars Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine, Glenn Close, and Sennia Nanua.

The near future: humanity has been all but destroyed by a fungal disease that eradicates free will and turns its victims into flesh eating “hungries”. Only a small group of children seem immune to its effects. The children attend school lessons daily, guarded by the ever-watchful Sergeant Parks. But one little girl, Melanie, stands out from the rest. Melanie is special. When the base falls, Melanie escapes along with her teacher Miss Justineau, Sergeant Parks, scientist Dr. Caldwell, and two other soldiers. Against the backdrop of a blighted Britain, Melanie must discover what she is and ultimately decide both her own future and that of the human race.

“I think [the film] has a number of unique selling points as a zombie story,” says Carey, who adapted his novel for the screenplay. “We decided very early on that we wanted to have a scientifically plausible explanation for our zombie apocalypse; for the plague that’s overtaken humanity. We went shopping and we found a fungus, Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis, in a David Attenborough documentary, ‘The Secret Life Of Plants’. It is a parasite that attacks ants in the Amazon rainforest. Its spores fall onto the forest floor. The ants crawl over them. The spores attach themselves to the ant’s body, and then the fungal mycelia grow up through the carapace of the ant into its nervous system. Basically, the fungus takes the ant and drives it away. It’s a hijacking.”

The Girl with All the Gifts is rated 14A.