Movies
[TIFF Review] ‘The Girl With All the Gifts’ is a Contemporary Take on ‘Day of the Dead’
M.R. Carey’s celebrated genre novel “The Girl With All the Gifts” is one of the few novels-turned-films included in the Midnight Madness program (Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Rats is the other). This is important to note because Carey is also the film’s screenwriter and many of the book’s deficiencies unfortunately carry over into his script.
Veteran British TV director Colm McCarthy makes his feature debut with this slightly subverted tale of a zombie infestation that has overridden the UK. The main character and our conduit into the film is Melanie (newcomer Sennia Nanua, making a strong impression). The opening scene effectively sets the stage: the flicker of lights announce the start of a new day in a dark cell of what we soon learn is an underground military bunker. As orders are barked outside her door, Melanie hides a few pictures beneath her pillow; moments later the door bursts open and her head, hands and feet are secured to a wheelchair by soldiers toting guns. Their actions are deliberately cautious and they are extremely agitated, particularly when they get too close to her.
As far as opening sequences go, The Girl With All the Gifts firmly checks all of the boxes. There’s a sense of mystery to the proceedings: why is Melanie locked up? Why are the soldiers so scared? Why are the safety precautions so severe for a child? As the pace picks up and McCarthy tracks Melanie’s wheelchair along the corridor, we see other children afforded the same treatment, then parked in formation for a school lesson administered in a way that resembles a cruel boarding school. What is going on here?!
It’s not a spoiler to reveal that Melanie is a “hungry”, the derogatory term used by the soldiers for the hordes of zombies just outside the compound walls. But Melanie and the approximately twenty other children aren’t like the creatures on the other side of the fence – those are feral creatures in varying states of decomposition who appear to have no higher brain function. Melanie stands firmly in opposition to this: her inquisitive nature and sunny disposition is one of the film’s most charming characteristics (her fondness for peppering the adults with exasperating questions is nice a recurring joke). Melanie acts completely normal, and she’s more than happy to answer questions in class , particularly if it earns her a smile from the beautiful Miss Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton), the only adult who treats her like a real girl.
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We’re barely ten minutes into the film when we learn that despite the lessons, the children are only being kept alive as test subjects for Dr. Caroline Caldwell (Glenn Close). The doctor is an icy intellect; her interactions with Melanie are all tests designed to analyze the girl’s responses and an early scene is shockingly candid about Caldwell’s willingness to brandish a scalpel if it brings humanity closer to a cure.
The opening act of the film hums along nicely, establishing questions and answering them quickly and efficiently, establishing both the characters and the new world order in measured paces. Things run predictably amok rather quickly and within the first half hour a brutal zombie attack forces Justineau, Caldwell and Melanie to abandon the compound with a group of soldiers led by angry Sgt. Parks (Paddy Considine). From here The Girl With All the Gifts moves into fairly traditional zombie film territory as the group seeks safe passage through London and stretches of dialogue-heavy character and world building are punctuated by zombie attack set-pieces designed to winnow down the ranks. Treading familiar ground is both a strength and a weakness of the film. One exciting sequence finds the group trying to navigate their way on foot through a pack of hungries who have gone into hibernation. Watching the small band cautiously move through a mass of hundreds of creatures, knowing that at any moment an attack can (and will) begin is tremendous fun, even if this is a scene that we’ve seen a million times.
Unfortunately The Girl With All the Gifts fails to do enough to distinguish itself from countless other flesh-eating films. The only true distinctive element is Melanie, a child-like contemporary update of Day of the Dead’s Bub, whose status as both zombie and human allows her to pass in both groups. As the film progresses, this skill becomes increasingly instrumental to the group’s survivals and earns her the begrudging respect of the soldiers, though not Dr. Caldwell. Close does what she can to ensure that the doctor is more than a simple caricature antagonist for Melanie (overall the acting is uniformly good – unsurprising given the pedigree of the cast). Caldwell’s insistence of her medical prowess reinforces the fact that Melanie is ultimately just a parasite wearing a child’s visage, a point contrasted by Justineau’s insistence that Melanie is simply a girl. What Carey’s screenplay doesn’t seem to realize is that the good mother/bad mother, nature vs nurture dichotomy isn’t really necessary; throughout the film we are repeatedly shown Melanie’s monstrous side when she eats humans and (more affectingly) a cat, just as we see the way she reacts to Justineau as a child reacts with love for their mother.
This issue, as well as the overall familiarity of so much of the narrative, were issues in the novel as well. The somewhat unique zombie mythos and compelling action sequences (staged effectively by McCarthy and thankfully not edited within an inch of their life) are definitely pros. Ultimately Carey’s inability to free himself of the predictability of his source novel drags down The Girl With All the Gifts’ potential. Chalk this up as competent, but unspectacular.
Ghostface is back on the big screen this weekend… well, sort of… with the release of Scary Movie, which marks the Wayans brothers’ return to the horror spoof franchise for the first time since Scary Movie 2 back in the day. It’s likely to be the talk of the horror community for the weekend, but don’t overlook the other six genre movies that were freshly unleashed today.
Here’s all the new horror that released on Friday, June 5, 2026.
The horror spoof franchise is back with Scary Movie now playing in theaters!
Marlon Wayans (“Shorty”), Shawn Wayans (“Ray”), Anna Faris (“Cindy”), and Regina Hall (“Brenda”) reunite for the new Scary Movie, with the cast also including Dave Sheridan, Lochlyn Munro, Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott, Jon Abrahams, Damon Wayans Jr., Gregg Wayans, Kim Wayans, Benny Zielke, Cameron Scott Roberts, Heidi Gardner, Olivia Rose Keegan, Ruby Snowber, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, and Felissa Rose.
Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer (“Ghostface”), the Core Four are back in the killer’s crosshairs and no horror movie IP is safe…
Scary Movie will slash through reboots, remakes, requels, prequels, sequels, spin-offs, elevated horror, origin stories, anything with the word legacy in it, and every “final chapter” that absolutely isn’t. A whole lot has changed in the horror genre since the Wayans Brothers were in charge of the franchise; their involvement ended with Scary Movie 2 back in 2001!
Michael Tiddes (A Haunted House) directs Scary Movie 6 from a script written by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, original Scary Movie director Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans (Scary Movie 2), and Rick Alvarez (A Haunted House).
From IFC, shark attack movie Chum is now available on Digital.
Alice Eve (Haunting of Queen Mary) stars in shark attack movie alongside Eric Michael Cole, Jim Klock, Elle Haymond, Lisa Yaro, Johnny Gaffney, and Sarah Siadat.
This one sounds very similar to last year’s Dangerous Animals…
Here’s the plot: “A newlywed couple joins friends on a Mediterranean yacht excursion, only to find themselves caught between a predatory shark and a psychopathic killer in their midst-transforming a sun-drenched escape into a fight for survival.”
Jonathan Zuck directs Chum, from a script by Jonathan Zuck and Joe Leone.
Samara Weaving (Ready or Not 2: Here I Come) and Kyle Gallner (Strange Darling) come together in Carolina Caroline, a sexy crime thriller now playing in theaters.
It’s not a horror movie, mind you, but it’s worth a mention here all the same.
Kyra Sedgwick (Family Movie) and Jon Gries also star in the romantic crime thriller.
Director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s film stars Samara Weaving as Caroline Daniels, whose desire to leave her small Texas town brings her into the orbit of a charismatic con man (Kyle Gallner), and together they weave a path of crime and passion across the American Southeast.
Adam Rehmeier previously directed the films Dinner in America and Snack Shack.
Tom Dean wrote the screenplay for Carolina Caroline.
Similar to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming big screen blockbuster Disclosure Day, Signal One explores humankind’s enduring question: what if we aren’t alone in the universe?
The sci-fi thriller is now available on Digital.
Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan), Josh Hutcherson (Five Nights at Freddy’s), David Thewlis (Harry Potter), Raoul Bhaneja (Possessor), Emma Ho (“The Expanse”), and Dennis Quaid (The Substance) star in Signal One from director Jonathan Sobol (The Art of the Steal).
When tech billionaire Sam Houston (Quaid) hires the brilliant computer scientist Annika (Fuhrman), she ventures to an isolated facility run by the brilliant, nihilistic creator of LITTLEMOUTH, a machine which can communicate with alien intelligence.
Annika soon learns some humanity-altering facts: that we are not alone in the universe, that alien intelligences are communicating around us at every moment, and that we are likely too primitive to even remotely understand what they are trying to tell us.
When the goal of the endeavor shifts from listening to talking back, the project rapidly devolves into chaos. With contact comes consequences, and soon Annika and the team must work to ensure the very survival of our species.
A schoolyard dare becomes an urban legend in the creepypasta-inspired horror anthology The Summoning. The indie film is now available on Digital from Brainstorm Media.
“A babysitting gig becomes a nightmare of urban legend when three teens summon Baby Blue. Survival depends on uncovering the past to escape a mother’s wrath from beyond the grave.”
Felipe Vargas (Rosario, Hive), Sergio Gonzalez, Brandon Piskorik, Corey Benson Powers, and Brian Sepanzyk direct the segments. Valeria San Martín, Justina Ceballos, Daniela Flombaum, Nannu Spannauss, Agustín Olcese, and Giovanni Onetti star.
The Summoning is written by Camilo Zaffora.
Happy Death Day actress Jessica Rothe stars as a mom struggling to keep her grip on her sanity and memory in the mind-bending Affection, now available on Digital at home.
In Affection, “Afflicted by a mysterious condition that resets her memory, Ellie becomes trapped in a cyclical nightmare with a man who claims to be her husband. She soon must uncover the horrifying truth of her existence—before she forgets it all again.“
Joseph Cross (“Big Little Lies”) and Julianna Layne (“Chicago P.D.”) also star in the sci-fi horror thriller. Affection marks the feature debut by writer/director BT Meza.
Daniel Kurland wrote in his review out of the film’s premiere, “Affection is steeped in existential questions and fears that plague modern society, while it embraces the ethos of the ’80s through bold body horror. Add to that Rothe’s revelatory performance, and Affection is a hidden gem that will connect with your mind, body, and soul.”
Lucile Hadžihalilović’s latest dark fairy tale, The Ice Tower, loosely reimagines Hans Christian Andersen’s fable “The Snow Queen,” and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
In the ’70s set film, “Jeanne, a 15-year-old orphan, witnesses the shoot of a film adaptation of the fairy tale The Snow Queen, and she becomes fascinated by its star Cristina (Marion Cotillard), an actress who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing.“
Clara Pacini stars as Jeanne. August Diehl and Marine Gesbert also star in The Ice Tower, and look for a cameo from director Gaspar Noé (Climax, Irréversible).
“For me, The Ice Tower solidified Lucile Hadžihalilović’s place amongst the most fascinating creators of fairy tales today,” said distributor Yellow Veil Pictures co-founder Joe Yanick.
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