The Cured — 10 Movies in 10 Days: TIFF 2017 Review

The Mob’s Reel has been gracious enough to host Mobster, Curtis Morgan's TIFF 2017 review. As an actor and film buff, Curtis braved this years red carpet to bring you spoiler-free reviews on the 10 films he saw at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.

REVIEW

Ever wonder what happens after the zombie crisis ends in shows like The Walking Dead or movies like 28 Days Later?  Neither have I.  Luckily, the director of The Cured, David Freyne, decided to make that the subject of his first feature film and it’s as interesting as the Zombie Apocalypse itself.  The Cured is an Irish film that presents a world where a zombie outbreak had terrorized millions in Ireland.  There were several casualties before scientist were able to create an antidote.  All zombies were captured and the antidote was given to them.  75% of the zombies recovered and were cured, while 25% were unaffected by the antidote, they were being kept in concentration camps and experimented on as various versions of the antidote were tried out on them.  The 75% that were cured are eventually, through military and government intervention, re-integrated back into society.  They look just like everyone else, the only thing that sets them apart is that they walk with the memories of everything they did as a zombie which is hard enough to live with.  What’s worse is that even though the disease of “zombie-ism” gave them no choice but to kill, society treats them like pariahs because their family members and friends were brutally murdered by their kind.

What you have now is the premise for a hybrid movie.  This shouldn’t have worked.  But it does… and it works well.  David Freyne constructs a film that is about social class systems, interpersonal relationships, forgiveness, redemption, horror, and evolution seamlessly, giving the film meaning on numerous levels simultaneously.  It is a complete idea.  That is rare in film these days.

The Cured is brilliantly acted by it’s three leads, Canada’s Ellen Page, and Irish actors, Sam Keeley & Tom Vaughan-Lawlor.  If you’ve ever enjoyed a zombie film, or a film about class systems or social discourse, or family, or addiction, The Cured has something in it that you can relate to.  I will honestly say, it is probably the most relatable zombie property I’ve seen.  It’s refreshing to see a brand new take on a genre that has been done to death at this point.

The Cured gets 4.3/5 stars.