Zombie Virus Transforms Abigail Breslin into a Flesh-Eating Killer in “MAGGIE”
Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin stars on a
titular role alongside legendary action film icon Arnold Schwarzenegger in the
zombie-filled and apocalyptic film “Maggie” where she plays a young woman
infected with a zombie virus and whose father’s love proves stronger than the
horror of the virus that invaded her being.
One
of this year’s most anticipated movie that spells huge commercial excitement, “Maggie”
is directed by Henry Hobson, one of the
world’s go-to directors for innovative title, end and credit sequences for his
film works in “Snow White & The Huntsman,” “Robin Hood,” “Sherlock Holmes,”
“The Help,” “Rango” and “Tree of Life,” video games “The Last of Us” and “Killzone”
as well as AMC’s acclaimed top-rated zombie series, “The Walking Dead.” Adding
further talents, Hobson has also (creative) directed the screen and stage looks
for the Academy Awards for the past 6 years.
The
movie is a heartbreaking take on the zombie genre that twists expectations and
puts a human face on an inexplicable horror.
By the time a necrotic viral pandemic spread cross-country to small town
America and infected the film’s titular character, 16-year-old Maggie
(Breslin), authorities had established a protocol for patients infected with
the deadly virus: they are removed from
society and taken to special isolation wards to complete the agonizing and
dangerous transformation into one of the walking dead. The authorities do not speak about what
happens after that.
Wade
Vogel (Schwarzenegger) is not ready to give up his daughter. After
weeks of searching for Maggie when she runs away following her diagnosis,
Wade brings his daughter back to her home and family – stepmother, Caroline
(Joely Richardson), and her two children. Having lost Maggie’s mother years earlier,
Wade is determined to hold on to his precious daughter as long as he can,
refusing to surrender her to the local police who show up with orders to take
her. As the disease progresses, Caroline
decides to take their two younger children and move out, leaving Wade
alone with Maggie to watch helplessly as she suffers.
Included
in the 2011 Blacklist for best unproduced screenplays, this is the first time
that Schwarzenegger has starred in or produced a low-budget, independent
film. “I really connected to the story
because I’ve had friends who were really sick,” said the 19-year-old acclaimed
actress, who made her big screen debut at age five in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2002
blockbuster film ‘Signs’. “I didn’t see Maggie
as a zombie movie, but rather a movie about a disease and the isolation of
being sick. I thought it was something I
could really go full force into and take my time with the character. Our film
is a humanization of zombies. Maggie’s not a monster. She goes in and out of her animalistic
behaviors as the virus takes over. There are scenes with her friends that offer
moments of relief from her isolation and sadness, the fact she’s dying. These are glimpses of what her life should be
like. Then, we come back heavier than
before because it’s all changing, it’s all going away.”
In
a departure for the zombie genre, the true horror and suspense in “Maggie” lays
not so much in the blood, brains and gore of the walking dead, but rather in
the dark reality of caring for a child or loved one whose terminal illness or
behavior make them a danger to themselves and their family – and eventually
confronting the even darker choices that behavior presents to anguished, loving
parents.
Watch the official trailer of "Maggie" below:
“Maggie” walks in cinemas nationwide this May 13 from Pioneer Films.
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