A movie review by Dennis D. McDonald

What if your teenage daughter, infected with a plague virus that is gradually turning her into a flesh eating zombie, comes home to spend her final days? What do you, her father, do as you watch the transformation take place? Do you send her to a government run “quarantine” facility to spend her final days alone? Do you give her a lethal suicide drug? Or do you just shoot her to put her out of her misery?

Small town farmer Arnold Schwarzenegger faces this dilemma in Maggie. In the process we see a zombie movie unlike any other play out as guided by a grave, serious, and sensitive performance by Mr. Schwarzenegger.

This is a highly personalized and emotional film. The focus is on the characters in the dreadful dilemma they face as their world crumbles around them.

As the daughter Abigail Breslin glows as she watches as her mind and body deteriorate.

One of the best scenes is when a group of old high school friends gather together after dark outdoors to reminisce and commiserate about how the world is falling apart as old friends become infected or are taken away. You can’t help but think about things like this that must take place around the world every day in war zones, refugee camps, and occupied territories as the sense of doom overtakes what should be a time of optimism and experimentation. 

There are scenes like this throughout the movie that set it apart from horror-fests like World War Z and comedies like Zombieland.

It may be appropriate to say that Maggie is the thinking and feeling person’s zombie movie.

Review copyright (c) 2016 by Dennis D. McDonald