HORROR; 1hr 35min
STARRING: Daisy Ridley, Mark Coles Smith, Brenton Thwaites, Matt Whelan
Dead zone: Ridley
When the US inadvertently ignites a test weapon off the coast of Tasmania, the city of Hobart is obliterated and lives are lost all over the place. As if that weren’t catastrophic enough, at an Australian military briefing, clean-up volunteers are informed that “in rare circumstances, we’re observing unusual behaviour from some of the deceased.” (Ahem!) Since those affected are reportedly harmless, however, “You have nothing to fear.” (Oh, please! )
American physical therapist Ava Newman (Star Wars’ Ridley, cocooned in sorrow) is as dismayed to hear this as anybody in their right mind would be, especially given that her husband, Mitch (Whelan), was on a business trip in the south of the island when the explosion occurred. In a frantic effort to locate him, Ava has joined the retrieval mission, which frustratingly despatches her by plane to the north.
The Australians on board are typically gung-ho about the entire, ghastly deal — until they encounter their first unlovely corpses, whereupon the rot rapidly sets in. A tearful Ava is less sanguine from the start, which only shows her great good sense: the scene that awaits them all is an apocalyptic killscape, through which writer-director Zak Hilditch (These Final Hours) idles with atmospheric intent. And when Ava encounters her first undead being, who appears to her to be piteous and lost, she can no longer bear the thought of the missing Mitch. With her maverick teammate Clay (Thwaites), she takes off on a commandeered motorcycle for a 200-mile trip to the resort where Mitch was staying.
It’s not until Ava’s quest is under way, and lone-wolf soldier Riley (Coles Smith) enters its unhinged picture, that the lie of this hellish land takes tangible shape. Stripped to its desaturated bones, Hilditch’s haunted island is a portal into the unknown, its scabrous zombies cautionary jolts on a roadmap to the suffering of the living.
