Irish zombie film 'Cured' bites off more than it can chew

The Irish horror drama ``The Cured'' offers an intriguing twist on the zombie movie -- something the genre badly needs at this point -- but can't quite make up its mind whether it wants to be an action or an art film. By the time it reaches its bloody, bone-crunching climax, the viewer may well have lost interest.

The premise: Before the story opens, a sizable part of the Irish populace had been infected by a virus that turned them into killers and eaters of human flesh. An antidote has transformed many of the zombies back into their pre-virus state, though they retain horrific memories of the deeds they committed.

While scientists are working to cure the remaining 25 percent, a vocal segment of the public wants to see the former zombies killed.

The story focuses on Senan (Sam Keeley) one of the cured ones, who has been sent to live with his widowed sister-in-law, Abbie (Ellen Page), and her young son. Senan is guilt-ridden but unable to come clean to Abbie that he killed her husband, who was also his brother. There is an unintentionally comic note to this wild circumstance, and the movie seems unaware of it.

It's not that writer-director David Freyne is incapable of finesse -- ``The Cured'' has long and affecting passages marked more by sadness and melancholy than horror -- but he seems to have misjudged the overtone here.

Though tormented by memories, Senan holds a job assisting a doctor who is working to cure the remaining zombies, and -- here the film makes a timely plea for tolerance -- tries to protect Abbie from abusive neighbors who resent having Senan in their midst.

Meanwhile, an ex-zombie acquaintance (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) from Senan's infected days, a former barrister with political aspirations, seethes with resentment about his current second-class status and starts a violent underground movement of the cured to strike back at their tormentors. If you sense a metaphor here for the IRA and Northern Ireland's ``troubles,'' I don't think Freyne would argue with you.

Credit Freyne for ambition -- he's trying to make a zombie movie with a certain amount of discretion, and evoke sympathy for at least some of those who've perpetrated unspeakable actions. But he's juggling too many themes here, and manages to lose us somewhere along the way.

staff writer. Email: waddiego@sfchronicle.com.

2 stars out of 4 stars

The Cured

Horror drama. With Sam Keeley, Ellen Page, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor. Directed by David Freyne. Rated R. 95 minutes.