World War Z (Cert 15, 116 mins, Paramount Home Entertainment) Starring Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Sterling Jerins, Abigail Hargrove, Daniella Kertesz, Fana Mokoena, Peter Capaldi, Pierfrancesco Favino, Ruth Negga, Moritz Bleibtreu.

*** 

Gerry Lane (Pitt) is a retired United Nations investigator, who devotes his time to his wife Karin (Enos) and daughters Constance (Jerins) and Rachel (Hargrove).

During a drive through Philadelphia, the Lanes witness the spread of a disease, which transforms men, women and children into merciless predators with a single bite.

Gerry’s old boss at the UN, Thierry Umutoni (Mokoena), guarantees Karin, Constance and Rachel safe passage on an aircraft carrier if Gerry agrees to travel behind enemy lines to discover the source of the outbreak.

The search moves from a military base in South Korea to Jerusalem and finally to a World Health Organisation compound in Wales where Gerry and an Israeli soldier (Kertesz) join four doctors (Capaldi, Favino, Negga, Bleibtreu) in the frantic race against time for a cure.

World War Z is a post-apocalyptic zombie action horror which boasts a cracking opening 60 minutes as the infected swarm like rabid animals, including some jump-out-of-your-seat scares.

The final act, which was rewritten and reshot, feels out of kilter with the rest of the film, but does at least stem the hordes of computer-generated undead that cram every frame of the early action sequences.

Pitt maintains beatific calm in the eye of a pyrotechnic-laden storm, barely breaking sweat as he attempts to save mankind from annihilation.

The Purge (Cert 15, 84 mins, Universal Pictures (UK) Ltd) Starring Ethan Hawke, Lena Headey, Adelaide Kane, Max Burkholder, Edwin Hodge, Rhys Wakefield.

***

The year is 2022. Unemployment is a mere one per cent in America and there is almost no crime.

Security salesman James Sandin (Hawke) returns home to his gated community and his wife Mary (Headey) and children Zoey (Kane) and Charlie (Burkholder). It’s Purge night and at 7pm a siren will sound that grants anyone immunity from prosecution for killing for the next 12 hours.

As the deadline approaches, the Sandins activate their state-of-the-art defence system and relax for the evening. The calm is shattered when teenager Charlie temporarily raises the shutters to allow a homeless man (Hodge) to escape from a heavily-armed mob. That act of kindness has terrifying consequences when one member of the rabble (Wakefield) makes clear they will break into the house unless the homeless man is delivered to them.

The tension is cranked up with sadistic glee in this impressively lean feature, leaving a ball of nervous tension in your stomach during the opening hour as the Sandins attempt to maintain the facade of polite respectability as destruction reigns outside their home.

Once that chaos breaks in, Hawke and Headey must fight for their lives in a series of breathlessly orchestrated showdowns.

Thorny moral issues aren’t discussed in great depth as the plot whirs into action and once the first gun shot sounds, it’s only a matter of time before diplomacy is jettisoned in favour of blood-curdling screams and razor-sharp machetes.