So, there was me thinking “I’ll watch The Girl With All The Gifts, it’s only a 15 certificate, how worrying/scary can it be?”
Ah, the answer to that would be absolutely terrifying.
A 15? Really?
I thought it was an interesting film, a layered intelligent take on the science fiction end of days genre that put me in mind of John Wyndham’s Day Of The Triffids, though I shan’t say too much more along those lines as to do do would give away the plot quite easily.
Although, as is often the case with British genre cinema and television, it has that slightly clunky, less polished, almost Children’s Film Foundation air to it in comparison to the ultra-gloss production that Hollywood/US films and television have made me quite used to… here that works to good effect as the almost innocent/naive child acting style that is present in the film sort of disarmed me and made the actuality of the reality of the world it showed and the characters’ actions and drives within it all the more unsettling, jarring and unexpected.
One of the images that particularly struck and stayed with me from the film was a shot of an overgrown flyover with an electricity pylon in the distance. That kind of crumbling civilisation giving way to nature has been done a fair few times in cinema and television but here, as is true to the film to a degree, there was a quiet grace and subtlety to it.
Despite the more visceral, unsettling aspects of the film, there is a kind of gentleness and sadness to the film rather than it being played for shock and sensationalistic horror.
Although, it is one of those films that can haunt you for a fair while afterwards…
(File Post Under: Cathode Ray & Cinematic Explorations, Radiowave Resonations & Audiological Investigations)
Audio Visual Transmission Guide:
The Girl With All The Gifts trailer
Local Broadcasts:
Day #176/365: The changing shadows of the fictions of John Wyndham…
