Human Contagion

A very low budget action/horror Brit flick featuring freerunning mutant zombie flesh eaters. Craig (Cliffhanger) Fairbrass and Danny (just about every recent cheapo-diamond-geezer pseudo-Arthur Mullard C-Grade megatrash straight-to-video Brit movie in recent years) Dyer take the leads.

The script and dialogue are pretty darned atrocious and the acting is sub-primary school nativity play standard. But, the pace is frenetic, the action violent and unrelenting, and it is a bit of mildly diverting fun. Plus, considering the budget must have stood at around £7.80 and a bag of chps, the convincing representation of London in the midst of a zombie apocalypse is fairly well rendered and quite suitably atmospheric.

There's plenty of punching, strangling, bludgeoning and shooting of the freerunning mutant zombie flesh eaters, and the very fact that the makers thought a Resident Evil type of virus McGuffin with the side-effect of gracing the stricken with parkour skills was a workable creative advance on the "28 Days Later" formula, makes it quite hilarious to watch at times.

Worth a look if you've nothing better to do. A cheerfully trashy time-waster.

The plot: After a new, experimental drug causes people to turn into acrobatic zombies, a brooding bruiser searches for the one person who can provide a cure.

Devil's Playground is a derivative and generic zombie movie, but I still enjoyed it. It's basically a ridiculous excuse to show lots of gore SFX and stunt work, the dialogue and acting are often cheesy, and it's undeniably a ripoff of modern "fast zombie" movies (especially 28 Days Later), but if you're in the mood for a B movie, this will satisfy you. If you're expecting it to be original (or even fast-paced), you're sure to be disappointed. It seems assembled from scenes of other zombie movies, but the scenes are competently directed, even if the dialogue and acting are occasionally a bit cheesy. It doesn't really have anything insightful or original to say, but it does manage to throw in lots of impressive stunts. If you're looking for a movie about flesh-eating acrobats, I think you'd have a difficult time finding a better one than this.

It's difficult to recommend this movie, but undemanding genre fans may enjoy it, despite the flaws. It's worth a view if you don't need anything better than a moody atmosphere, some B movie actors, and a simple plot. It's no classic, but it's a cut above the typical direct-to-video zombie movies that I've been watching lately.

Although I imagine this is a straight to DVD affair, I caught this film on the big screen, followed by a Q&A with the director, and other members of cast and crew, who seemed very proud of their work.

During the showing the film got a few unintentional laughs which led a member of the cast to comment afterwards "I didn't know we had made a comedy zombie film" - No you didn't, you made a film which for the most part was extremely dull, with a wafer thin story and unconvincing characters. The laughter in the audience was due to the poor delivery of meagre lines of script and cliché plot developments.

With so many zombie films out there, you need a new angle to stand out from the crowd, and it was the directors belief that this comes from the fact that the zombies are free runners. To be fair, although free running zombies is only one step forward from the speedy zombies of the Dawn of the Dead remake and 28 Days Later, it's not a bad idea and I was fairly enthused with the idea of seeing this slight new twist. However I was soon to be extremely disappointed that although the film was being sold with this as its unique selling point, this wasn't exploited at all. Yes, the zombies (which mostly just looked like young people in hoodies) ran fast, jumped and vaulted over cars and other obstacles in their way a few times, but I was left thinking is that it, could they not jump and twist off a few buildings or do something well a bit more visually exciting?

The fact that this aspect of the film didn't live up to the hype was only compounded by the complete lack of interesting story. I never bought into any of the characters, especially the lead (played by Craig Fairbrass) who for me has no screen presence whatsoever. Within half an hour I couldn't care less whether any of the characters survived, and the zombies were so uninspiring that I couldn't even root for them.

On the plus side, I thought the film was well shot, with some cool images of London just about stopping me nodding off from boredom a couple of times. Plus there was a genuinely funny cameo from Sean Pertwee (the best part of the film). Shame that his character was never to be seen again, his story might have been more interesting!

Not a fan of Danny Dyer, his attempts at being an 'ard man are cringeworthy, but he is tolerable in this fun virus infected maniacs film. I think they did a great job for the low budget. Some good bloody deaths and some attempts at character development too. Human nature and survival, betrayal. Far worse films out there and for a cheap UK film it's good. Shot in 25 days!! Well done to cast and crew for getting that much done in such a short time and budget.

Stop me if you've heard this before.

A superdrug is tested inadvertently causes the patients to turn into mindless, rage filled… ummm… aaaaahhhh… zombies I guess. Coming into contact with fluids or being bitten by the infected allows the virus/condition/disease to be spread, leading to a massive contagion in the entire nation of Great Britain.

Sound familiar? Well what about this? Only one patient seems immune to the negative symptoms – you know the flesh eating and general insanity – she is on the run, with various parties in pursuit to see if she holds the key to a cure.

OK so Devil's Playground hardly breaks into new territory, but it has a couple of moments, not the least of which is the count the clichés bingo that can be played while watching.

The reporter on the street being interrupted and killed on screen.

The guy who repeats "Mum. Mum. MUM!" as his destiny shuffles ever closer, covered in blood and ready to teach the poor dumb guy a lesson in common sense.

The guy who's infected and needs a cure immediately, only he lasts half the film without one while others who share a glass turn in 45 seconds flat.

The whole 'but she's pregnant' bit.

After the Zompocalypse © starts the infected immediately turn into parkour-ing Reapers from Blade 2, all leaping, snarling, unnecessary wall climbing menaces. They spill lots of blood and cause lots of gore all over the UK, usually with backdrops of carefully constructed carnage reminiscent of the Left 4 Dead video games.

Devil's Playground is uninspired and formulaic and doesn't do much to separate it from a million other similarly bland zombie flicks. As much as I love zombies I can't help but think for the time being they are a little overdone, this isn't the film that will revitalize the genre, but I give a couple bonus points for at least trying to make the film look bigger and flasher than a lot of other low budget efforts.

Final Rating – 4.5 / 10. So you say zombies are threatening the very social fabric of a nation again and it's up to a few individuals to save humanity? Wake me when it's finished will ya?