Devil's Playground | 2010
Devil's Playground is a British horror film directed by Mark McQueen, starring Craig Fairbrass. Intandem Films holds the worldwide rights to the film, which was produced by Freddie Hutton-Mills, Bart Ruspoli, and Jonathan Sothcott. The movie revolves around a disastrous human experiment conducted by the fictional pharmaceutical company N-Gen. After the final stage of testing goes wrong, the test subjects become violently ill, and as their side effects worsen, they transform into marauding beasts. Worse yet, their bites are infectious, and soon London is overrun by hordes of bloodthirsty monsters. Cole, a mercenary for N-Gen and a hardened killer, is searching for Angela Mills, the only hope for a cure. Angela is the only test subject who didn't suffer from side effects, and her immunity is the key to preventing a global apocalypse. However, Cole’s mission becomes complicated by constant attacks from the infected and the virus slowly overtaking his own body.
The film features a strong cast, including Danny Dyer, Craig Fairbrass, MyAnna Buring, and Jaime Murray, with Fairbrass playing the lead role of Cole. Filming began on November 30, 2009, at Elstree Studios. Devil's Playground premiered at the Gorezone Film Festival on October 3, 2010, and was released on DVD and VOD by Vivendi on October 11, 2011.
The film received mixed reviews. Leslie Felperin of Variety described it as "unoriginal but watchable." Mark L. Miller of AICN called it "heavy on action and surprisingly textured when it comes to story." On the other hand, William Bibbiani of CraveOnline criticized it as a forgettable and "completely nondescript" knock-off of 28 Days Later. Kayley Viteo took issue with the film's rapid shifts in tone, calling it a caricature of 28 Days Later. However, Peter Dendle acknowledged the film as "largely familiar, but with competent and convincing execution."
