The Cured (2017)

(In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) I’m not just tired of zombie films; I’m even tired of zombie films that try to distinguish themselves from other zombie films. In The Cured’s case, it means that the story takes place some time after a zombie virus outbreak, after a cure has been found to bring back roughly three-quarter of the former zombies to humanity. The remaining quarter that’s resistant to the cure is a problem, though, and as the film begins, there’s a very reasonable proposal (at least in Ireland, where the film takes place) to get rid of the cure-resistant zombies on fears that they could escape and cause another outbreak. The film’s most distinctive characteristics are the social and political implications of a society recovering from a zombie outbreak, the guilt of the cured zombies and the second-order consequences of the situation. But The Cured is a zombie movie, so any attempt at political complexity goes out the window once the third act leads to another outbreak with the usual clichés. The film’s psychodrama resurfaces in time for an unsatisfying ending, but we know what to expect from writer-director David Freyne by then: a dour, slow-paced darkly-shot film that tries to cram a drama in the middle of a zombie film, but ultimately can’t settle for anything but some zombie action. Less-jaded audiences may find some interest in the variations on a theme played in The Cured, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m even more burnt-out on the genre than before.