As this knockout science fiction opens, Melanie (played by thrilling newcomer Sennia Nanua) lives a regimented life inside an ill-defined military facility. Every morning she straps herself into a wheelchair so that soldiers can transport her to a classroom. She hero-worships her kindly teacher, Miss Justineau (Gemma Arterton).

She chats amiably with the sinister medic (Glenn Close) who patrols the corridors by night. She even attempts to get along with Sgt Parks (Paddy Considine), the cruel commander of her military captors.

He, in turn, refers to Melanie and the other children like her, as “frigging abortions”. We soon learn the source of his contempt: outside the facility, humanity has been zombified by a fungus. The flesh-eating afflicted are called “hungries”, and Melanie is one of them.

What film fan among you has not, in the post-Hunger Games universe, been burned by the empty promises of the Next Big Young Adult wannabe franchise? This sub-genre has but one sorry rival in the league table of spent forces: the post-apocalyptic zombie movie.

With a nod to 28 Days Later, this adaptation of MR Carey's well-regarded novel beats the odds and reboots the dystopian fantasy. The project's Britishness brings a paradoxical exoticism to the material – American zombies are so over, right? – while recalling the classic post-apocalyptic landscapes of John Wyndham. A handy script, which Carey wrote alongside the novel, allows for action, thrills, philosophical inquiry, and the occasional zombie zinger.

The film is not afraid to allow its villains to be heroic, nor for its hero to be monstrous. Working on a relatively small budget, Scottish director Colm McCarthy fashions a terrifying alt-future from confined spaces and group dynamics where another film-maker might have lazily summoned a CGI vista.

Newcomer Sennia Nanua proves more than capable of keeping pace with her more experienced co-stars, as she simultaneously charms and scares. All the gifts, indeed.