Review – Maggie (2015)

I’m almost always willing to give a movie a fair chance; I mean come on, I gave #horror a viewing even though I knew damn well it was going to be #horrible. However, if you’re fan of cinema, even more so horror, you have to be willing to give things a shot, otherwise you’ll miss out on hidden gems. The 2015 horror story, Maggie, is one that has received several mixed reviews, but mostly hate. I finally decided to see for myself if this movie was worth viewing more than once. And the verdict is…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtyvEVqxtyI

The answer… not terrible, but not superb either. Maggie was directed by Henry Hobson and stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Abigail Breslin. Maggie (Breslin) is a midwest girl who has become infected by an outbreak of a disease that turns people into zombies. Although there’s not many options for her to choose from in this tragic situation, her father, Wade (Schwarzenegger), stays by her side the entire time. But what else can you expect from a father?

First of all, I love Abigail Breslin and Arnold Schwarzenegger – both are phenomenal actors who are no rookies at acting. Abigail has been acting since she was a wee little one and has done several horror films, including one of her first roles in Signs. Everyone knows who Arnold is, but it is surprising to see him in a role like this since he’s known more so for his action movies. In an interview, Arnold explains why he chose to partake in this low-budget horror film. Basically he says that he had never done anything like this and it felt more “real” to him than anything else he’d ever done before. When he saw the script, he knew he wanted to be a part of it despite the lack of funding. To me, this is truly amazing. A director’s dream come true is to have a cinema icon WANT to be in the film they’re creating. I only wish I could have seen Arnold kicking zombie ass… how awesome would that have been? I guess it deflects from the point of him wanting to do this movie though.

This zombie story is like several other zombie/infected movies, such as 2013’s Contracted where we get to see the person slowly transitioning from human to zombie. I actually enjoy this quite a bit. Zombie movies have been done over and over again and more often than not, all we get to see is the zombies eating brains, not how the zombies became the way they are. It’s more heartfelt watching someone go through the process – what their family goes through, how their body changes, how their mood changes, their appetite, and so on. It’s very emotional. Little by little, losing the person you love and knowing that sooner or later they’re going to die or you’ll have to end their life for them… can you imagine? Actually, in some ways I can imagine because unfortunately I, or anyone else who has ever lost a loved one to cancer, know it can be exactly like that – just without the whole cannibalistic part.

I loved the daughter-father relationship and the human to zombie transformation, but everything else was rather boring. It was slow and drawn out with very little excitement. I understand that it was a depressing situation, but adding more story development could have benefited Maggie tremendously.  Maybe flashbacks of how she used to be, or more information on how the outbreak happened, something like that. But all we got is her transformation and her father’s mixed feelings of losing his daughter and knowing when to end her suffering. I felt his pain, but if I could have seen more of what happened before all of this, I would have felt more involved and invested in the story. Plus, like any zombie story, I wanted to know more in-depth information about the outbreak, how she managed to get infected and why her father didn’t, etc.

Overall, Maggie wasn’t awesome, but I don’t hate it either. I highly doubt I’ll revisit anytime soon, but I do think it’s worth a watch. The relationship between Arnold and Abigail feels real and it’s interesting seeing him take on a different type of character. Just don’t go into thinking it’ll be your typical zombie flick because it’s more of a drama with a focus on zombie transformation and how it not only affects the person with the disease but everyone around them.