Review of ‘Devil’s Playground’: A Grisly UK Zombie Frenzy That Will Leave You Breathless!
Many years ago, I made a regular habit of reviewing UK horror movies, being as, when it comes to films of such material, I’m very patriotic. I was on a mission to show the world that we’re more to the genre than just Hammer, Amicus and Shaun of the Dead. For instance, Comedown (see review of Comedown here) was basically an atmospheric and brutal The Burning knock off, then we had Piggy (see review for Piggy here) a low key and brooding violent gem all about vengeance, whilst Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (see review for Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly here) brought a bit of lesser known ‘70s to the front for a bit.
All those and the others I reviewed covered various subject matters, but one I missed happened to be the zombie & infected stuff. After 28 Days Later, there were numerous titles spawned on these shores inspired by that classic. One such, though offering nothing truly original, instead presented a complete nightmare vision filled with hoards of running springing black veined motherfucking nasty ass infected dead people coming at you.
Let’s put zombies on certain levels for a moment — if we go with Romero’s and Fulci’s shuffling rotting dead, you can hide, escape round them, unless there’s absolutely tons of them and you aren’t cornered, you might survive the night. Then you have the Dawn of the Dead remake and 28 Days Later vibe ones (okay, I know the Danny Boyle ones aren’t dead, but stay with me) they are marathon runners, they are ugly and will likely catch you, but you can hide, you can take their heads out of the game.
Next level (and the most dangerous) is the World War Z and especially these Devil’s Playground incarnations. In this flick, they are fucking fast, strong, pulsing with arteries filled by black blood and they tear at you like they watched 30 Days of Night. Shit is real. You hide in a building, they leap through the windows, they dive through the doors. One or two can annihilate a group of survivors, so what chance do you have against literally thousands of them rampaging through the streets of London?
Devil’s Playground is not original in any way shape or form, so don’t expect anything new. Instead, be ready for a breakneck paced gritty and doom-laden masterpiece of desperation which draws together a really excellent cast against zombies hell bent on tearing them to pieces.
Craig Fairbrass (Rise of the Footsoldier 1-6, The Bank Job, Villain) is a huge name in British Gangster films — a world of guns, drugs, sex and men saying, “U c’ant!” (translation — “You cunt!”) a lot. Usually a bad guy with muscles, far cry from his real-life persona, as witnessed by anybody who follows his Instagram account. In this he is an anti-hero, a man desperate to escape his past by hopefully saving the last remnants of humanity. He’s joined by controversial bad boy, Danny Dyer (Doghouse, Pimp, Vendetta) who has in the last few years drifted more into regular paying TV work (both men have had dominant roles in long running London semi-gangster over the top ridiculous soap opera, Eastenders) and MyAnna Buring (The Witcher series, Ripper Street) plus Jaime Murray (Defiance, Fright Night 2 New Blood and of course, she was Lila in Dexter) but don’t believe that any of these people are safe as star names, they are going to go through hell.
It all starts with an experimental drug made by N-Gen in which thousands of people are paid to be tested with around the country. There’s a shift in behaviours as the test subjects die on the spot after a while but immediately leap up to attack anyone close to them. You can tell the beginning of this shift due to black throbbing veins and their eyes changing. Spokesperson and N-Gen high up the ladder man, Peter White (played with elegance and savagery by Colin Salmon of the Arrow series) shows up to the main centre of tests where he witnesses the transformation of a subject firsthand before becoming one himself. The whole building is rammed full of deranged animal like zombies who are diving over tables, through glass, and these can only be taken down if you pulverize their craniums into mush. By then you’ve spent so much time doing this, another three are likely on top of you anyway after a bit of parkour.
Cole (Fairbrass) is a ruthless assassin sent by the N-Gen group to kill any test subjects before they change, he goes into people’s homes and shoots them. Currently he’s working with his replacement, Billing, as he’s had enough after he killed a pregnant woman. They are both trapped inside the building when this huge outbreak begins — and it’s not just there it’s everywhere. Once bitten, those receivers change, speed wise depending on where they are bit. Cole himself is infected after a bite to the hand, but is given three syringes by a lead scientist, which with enable him to fight the contagious shit inside him for around eighteen hours.
He is told about a woman, Angela (Myanna) that is (so far) the only test subject that hasn’t showed any signs of change. She could be immune and an answer to the plague. Cole must find her, keep her safe, and hopefully convince her to head overseas to be tested. She’s with her friend, Kate trying to find a way out of London to rendezvous with her brother, Matt, who’s at the same time attempting to get out of a police station where he works with a helicopter pilot for their overall plan of flying off the island.
Angela’s ex, Joe (Dyer) is also trying to find her, he’s out on bail (he’s a cop who killed a fourteen-year-old kid) and staying with his mate, Steve who paid his bail. As all these characters close in on one another, an American couple, Jeff, and Lavinia (Jaime Murray) are mixed in. The truth is that the chopper will only hold four people. Cole decides there’ll be multiple trips back and forth, but certain members of the group aren’t too sure he means it, so tensions rise…
Devil’s Playground doesn’t hold back on the gore. There are savage tears and bites, gunshot wounds, pulverized heads — it has all of this and more. The zombies are totally intense, the way they move, the noises they make, screaming high pitched in unison as they charge at you, this creates many tense and edge of yer seat moments. Another more recent UK film, The Girl with all the Gifts had a similar vibe but a deeper story, other than these two and the 28 Days/Weeks Later movies, I can’t think of anything else from my country that has done it as well.
Director, Mark McQueen handles the scenes like a pro, you just don’t know where these gangs of nasties are going to spring from. The characters, though not really fleshed out, are given enough life to have you interested in who will die and who will survive minute to minute. There’s hardly a quiet moment to be had, just when you think they can catch a breath, their vehicle is attacked, or an onslaught of zombies pour through the doors and windows. It’s insane! (Mark has since left the horror business, instead handling TV series such as The Only Way is Essex and Top Gear, probably making him a very comfortable, and hard-working man).
The effects team is huge — including Peter Hawkins, who went on to work with the Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, and Star Wars franchises. The film combines a lot of prosthetics alongside carefully shown CGI — it works well.
The downside, if anyone from the USA or Canada (in fact I reckon many other countries) watch this, they’ll perhaps find the gruff south of England accents hard to follow — Craig and Danny are pure dye in the wool Londoners, so subtitles could be useful. In fact, legendary Sean Pertwee (Event Horizon, Dog Soldiers, Gotham) shows up for a bit and his accent is just as ruthless.
All in all, Devil’s Playground isn’t trying to break new ground, it isn’t overly intelligent, all it wants to do is take the viewer on the fastest roller coaster of blood, savagery, and violence imaginable. These zombies are one of the top-level kinds of demented out of control truck smacking into your helpless torso sort, believe me, this is one hell of a ride! I’ll use my Partner in Gore, Willow, as an example. She’s viewed an army of walking corpse movies in her life, but within the first five minutes, she was entranced. It’s the speed the infection spreads, panic, death, the desperation and actions of the survivors, trust your Uncle Creepy, Devil’s Playground is worth a late-night viewing.
Directed by: Mark McQueen
Written by: Bart Ruspoli
Produced by: Freddie Hutton-Mills, Bart Ruspoli, Jonathan Sothcott
Cinematography by: James Shephard
Editing by: Robert Hall
Music by: James Edward Barker
Special effects by: Peter Hawkins, Mark Roberts, Stuart Szymanski, My Alehammer and many more
Cast: Craig Fairbrass, Danny Dyer, Sean Pertwee, MyAnna Buring, Shane Taylor, Lisa McAllister, Craig Conway, Colin Salmon, Jaime Murray, Bart Ruspoli
Year: 2010
Country: UK
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 33min
Distributor: Entertainment One