Movie Review: The Cured

By: Savannah David, Destiny Cannon, and Izabella Hotz

April 25, 2020

The Cured is a movie about a zombie virus, the “Maze” Virus, but more specifically, it is about the social side effect of a cured zombie virus. The Maze Virus is shown in Ireland, where it takes effect through blood or bodily fluid contact, more commonly through bites. After years of the zombie plague, humanity tries to grasp the former zombies into society. 

The virus takes quick action in producing extreme psychological harm, causing raging homicidal actions as well as a much lower cognitive function. The virus ends up being cured, but there are 25 percent who are resistant to this cure. 

The movie follows the stories of a few cured members, Senan and Conor, and their relationships with their families. It also follows the work of Dr. Lyons, who is desperately trying to find the cure for the rest of the patients. 

The biggest aspect of this movie is that the cured patients have a detailed memory of the actions they took while psychologically warped, and they are entirely immune to being re-infected. They are also met with absolutely no aggression from the actively-infected.

As the government talks of euthanasia, rebellions of cured patients in hard-lockdown rise. Watch as social tensions grow between the infection free and the cured.

This movie is overall extremely expressive in its motives and message. The acting captures the subtle agonies of the strenuous social topics in this story. The dynamic between the people who have been cured and their unaffected family members is really powerful. 

Relationships shown in this movie, in general, are powerful and written in a realistic way. The way the story is written feels very human, especially in the way that Senan’s and Abbie’s relationship as family stays intact even after she receives the heartbreaking news (which we will not share for the sake of major spoilers).

The most intriguing human relationships are those of Conor and the rest of the released people. It was interesting to watch him act more out of self-preservation and power than simply him being totally mad. Seeing the struggle from Conor’s family denouncement and political failures due to his infection to his newfound “family” seemed to only fuel his fire. 

The infection of Cillian and how Senan reacts definitely throws Abbie for a twist, and again, the relationships of others is once again highlighted and on display. 

What really sets this movie apart is the addiction of the aspect that the cured people do not have any sort of memory loss after being cured, which gives a really heart-wrenching tone to the entire movie. It is even mentioned that after being bitten, people continually fight the psychological effects for a decent amount of time before succumbing.

The movie’s biggest downfall are the “gory” scenes. They are quite violent, and while that is to be expected, they really stick out.

The artistry in the violence scenes are not that bad; they just stand so far out from the rest of the film, very quickly switching from the subtle and suspenseful mood to simple gore. One thing to note, however, is the orchestration of those scenes from the cinematography to the staging, which was definitely very good. 

Another problem the movie runs into with the gory aspect is the lighting. Sometimes the FX clashed a bit with the lighting and mood that can be in place with post production, but it does not take away from the overall movie.

This being said, some of the script can get a bit awkward and occasionally a bit overly-subtle. The ending leaves a fair amount of questions to be answered, and there is absolutely room for another movie, but so far, there has not been a follow up.

The zombie movie genre is generally extremely predictable, but this movie is very much so not about the infected members while they are indeed infected but definitely more about the aftermath. The Cured definitely gives a really good, more realistic, and human theme to a “zombie” virus event.

Overall, this is a good horror movie for people who want more psychological and societal elements than just gore and guts.