Review of Devil's Playground (2010) by Lee R — 19 Oct 2010

Zombies have seriously evolved in the movies over recent years. When they first staggered onto our screens in search of some yummy flesh to chew on they were shambling, slow and unless cornered by an entire horde of them, not particularly dangerous.

Then with films like 28 days later and Zack Snyders Dawn of the dead remake they suddenly became much more lively and fleet of foot. So whats the next natural step for the undead? Well if this 2010 low budget brit flick is to be believed, the reanimated corpse's of the recently deceased are talented free runners! Yep thats right, get bitten, wait to die from infection, become zombie, master Parkour! So anyway, The plot is pretty much bog standard zombie flick territory.

Medical research company creates drug (in this case performance enhancer) and start testing on willing volunteers. After a while the volunteers start showing side effects that before you know it, mutate into a zombie disease thingy.

A few survivers get together with a mind to escape the infected shores of the UK. Among these survivors are A woman who was one of the performance drug test subjects, who happens to be showing no symptoms and therfore must be immune, her recently released from prison ex boyfriend played with his usual cockney wideboy schtick by the ever dire Danny Dyer, a thug who used to work for the medical company but now needs to help the immune girl to safety so that he can find a cure for his own bite played by rent a bargain basement hard man Craig Fairbrass (from Eastenders of all places) and an assortment of other characters I couldnt really give a fuck about.

While this review seems pretty negative I have given it 3 stars because I did really enjoy it. When its good its actually really good and it excells in the scenes when London first falls into the chaos of the viral outbreak.

Where it fails though is the directors delusion that he is infact as talented as someone like Danny Boyle. The deserted london scenes are just poorly executed 28 days later rip offs except not done as well.

And for all I knock him, I do really actually quite like Danny Dyer. I have know real idea why though as he is pretty much a one trick pony. The biggest problem is that this movie is under the delusion that its up to par with some of the better british horror movies of late.

Sadly the director is no Neil Marshel or Danny Boyle or even Jake West for that matter. But anyone up for watching a brain dead, unintentionally funny slice of zombie action could do worse.