I was really happy when the proper East End geezer joined the cast of EastEnders, I'd previously only seen two of his films, Human Traffic and Severance, with Halloween on the way I thought I'd try one of his horror films. Basically in the not too distant future leading pharmaceutical company Newgen Industries is in the final stages of testing its new "legal performance enhancer", RAK-29, testing has met with spectacular failure as the drug has caused physical and allergic reactions for over 30,000 test subjects, causing a media uproar. But the side effects worsen and test subjects become increasingly violent until they are nothing more than marauding beasts, and their bites are infectious, turning anyone bitten into flesh eating zombies like them. Dr. Michael Brooke (Del Henney) identifies only one test subject who has not turned into a bloodthirsty monster, pregnant woman Angela Mills (The Descent's MyAnna Buring), her immunity makes her the only hope to find a cure for the plague that threatens the world. Despite handing in his resignation to CEO Peter White (Colin Salmon), N-Gen mercenary and hardened killer Cole (EastEnders' Craig Fairbrass) is given the mission to find and protect Angela to bring her in for examination. Cole is joined by other survivors, including Joe (Danny Dyer), but Cole's mission becomes much more difficult when he is bitten himself, he injects himself with a drug that will slow the process of infection, but will Angela stay safe and sound to save the world from apocalypse. Also starring Jaime Murray as Lavinia, Shane Taylor as Geoffrey, Sean Pertwee as Rob and Mike & Angelo's Tim Whitnall as News Anchor. Dyer gets a little swearing as usual and acts a vague hero, but not much else, Fairbrass is tougher, and the other cast members do their stuff fine, the film certainly has a fair amount of blood, guts and violence to keep scary movies fans happy, but it is let down but a lacklustre script and a predictable story, a pretty pointless science-fiction horror. Adequate!
Review of Devil's Playground
