Forget the Triffids, Ophiocordyceps unilateral is the botanical peril to worry about in The Girl With All The Gifts. It’s the fungus that reduces the populace to zombies – or ‘hungries’ - in the new adaptation of M. R. Carey’s apocalyptic tale. Here’s two first-look images to sink your teeth into.
Worse than a mere zombie virus, the fungus offers another means to pass on the flesh-craving, brain-numbed state. So not only do you have to avoid drooling lurchers, you have to steer well clear of the vegetation too. Trying coping with that, Rick Grimes.
What’s left of the British population, now hunkered down in London, tries to find a cure from a single, intriguing anomaly: a group of children who have developed into a hybridised half-human, half-zombie state. Glenn Close’s cold-eyed Dr. Caldwell experiments on them to find a cure for the pathogen.
Gemma Arterton, tooled up to the nines with Paddy Considine’s Sergeant Parks in the first picture, is Miss Justineau, a teacher who’s formed a bond with Melanie, one of the kids. She's a special child blessed with skills that will be tested when she, Justineau, Parks and Caldwell are forced to survive in a hostile landscape.
The Girl With All The Gifts was shot in the UK last May with Peaky Blinders' Colm McCarthy behind the camera. It gets its UK release on September 9.