With zombie movies and shows being all the rage nowadays, the “zombie rules” become a bit overwhelming, to say the least. Do the humans turn immediately or after a while? Are they fast or slow? Do they still function as normal human beings, just slower, or do they have superhuman strength and rational? Do they enjoy Queen or are they a huge Deliverance fan? The list goes on and on, and I’m sure there’s more you can add.
Well Maggie is a different kind of story. It’s not a survival story like most zombie films, and it’s not a rebuilding and restructuring story like others. Maggie is more about the moment, take a combination of Amy’s death from The Walking Dead and R turning human. It’s essentially an hour and half of dying, in a rather disheartening setting between shockingly emotional acting from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin.
Maggie stars Schwarzenegger as Wade Vogel, the father of Maggie Vogel, an infected teen who ran away from home so as not to cause any emotional or physical pain for her family. She accomplishes just that by calling home and saying not to look for her since she was bitten in her arm and will expect to turn to a zombie soon. Heeding her advice, Wade immediately sets out on finding her, and after two weeks of searching, he brings her back home to spend the last remaining days of her conscious life with her. Through time, we see others turn to the undead, we see remorse for survival, and some romance, all ending in despair. However, what might be most poignant in the whole film is not that Wade refuses to accept the fact that his daughter is about to turn into something that could harm him, but that Maggie herself accepts that fact and take precautions on her own to protect others around her.
The film also stars Joely Richardson, Rachel Whitman Groves, Douglas M. Griffan, JD Evermore, and Bryce Romero. You can check out the trailer below as well as our interview with Groves at the film’s premiere at Tribeca.
