Overall Rating
 Awesome: 53.28%
Worth A Look: 21.78%
Average: 7.61%
Pretty Bad: 8.4%
Total Crap: 8.92%
17 reviews, 279 user ratings
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| 28 Days Later |
by Brian McKay
"Welcome to the end of the world - brought to you by P.E.T.A."
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After hearing all the raves from the Sundancers about this film, I had to see it. How I managed to do so (considering the fact that the film won't get wide release until August), I leave to your imagination. The important thing is that I am happy to jump on the bandwagon and report that this is one of the best horror movies I've seen in years.I just found the perfect companion film to one of my other favorite horror films of the past decade, Dog Soldiers. Like that film, it is a small British production which stands head and shoulders above the glut of most horror movies thanks to a fantastic script, equally fantastic actors to populate it, and some wonderfully frantic directing from Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Shallow Grave). Also like that film, it is highly reminiscent of other films that have come before. Many of the themes are recognizable from such films as Outbreak, the Stephen King miniseries The Stand, and Romero’s Dead films. Yet it manages to bring us something that feels refreshing and new. And scary. I mean genuinely scary, in both the “jump out and go BOO” sense, as well as the layers of suspense and impending dread. The “zombies” are creepy as hell. Think the zombies in Romero’s films were scary? Hell, you can outrun them. It’s a little harder to do when the zombies run too.
Of course, these aren’t zombies in the traditional horror movie sense. They are not reanimated corpses, but humans who have been infected with a kind of super-rabies known simply as “The Rage”, an apparently man-made virus which is being studied using simian subjects. When a group of animal rights activists break into a London lab to free the imprisoned creatures, they unwittingly open a Pandora’s box.
28 days later, Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up in a hospital bed, naked and with various tubes stuck in him. The last thing he remembers is having an accident when a car cut him off while he was on his bike. Soon after he comes to, he discovers that the hospital is empty, apparently in the aftermath of something horrific. Debris is scattered everywhere, there are signs of a stampede or looting or a hasty retreat everywhere. The most chilling scene of all is when Jim sees a row of pay phones, all of them dead, all with the receivers dangling off the hook, leaving the viewer to wonder how many people tried to make frantic calls to loved ones on those phones, only to let the silent earpiece drop from numb fingers.
When Jim gets outside, things don’t look much better. The city is as empty as the hospital. More debris lies everywhere, along with overturned or abandoned vehicles. He finds scattered newspapers with headlines that say things like “EVACUATION”, “Military ordered to shoot on sight”, and “Government checkpoints overrun.” (oddly enough, Jim doesn’t bother to sit down and actually read the newspaper. I guess some people just aren’t that curious about the end of the world).
Jim soon gets a taste of what the rest of the world has already been through, when he is attacked by a twitching, rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth creature that used to be a normal human being. As he runs screaming in terror, two unlikely saviors come to his aid. They are Mark (Noah Huntley) and Selena (Naomie Harris). After saving him from the zombies and filling him in on world events they quickly run down the list of the “lessons”. Lesson number one, don’t interact with anyone unless you have to. Number two, don’t travel at night, unless you have to. And lesson number three – if someone in your party gets infected, you have less than thirty seconds to put them down before they turn into a twitching mess and start eyeing you like a pork chop.
As they move about London, either fighting or getting away from the rabid hordes, they encounter another pair of survivors, Middle-aged Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his teenage daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). After hearing a radio broadcast of a looped recording urging any survivors to flee to a military outpost near Manchester, they decide to risk the perilous journey in the hopes of finding salvation at the end, narrowly escaping the pursuing zombies more than once (the “Tunnel Chase” scene is truly harrowing). What they find at the end of their road is a handful of soldiers led by Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston). However, West and his men have their own agenda, and protecting Jim and his friends is not exactly at the top of their priorities list.
28 Days Later is genuinely unnerving, and thoroughly engrossing. How engrossing? Well, about 50 minutes in, I was hit with a strong and sudden urge to urinate. Mind you, I wasn’t in a theater. All I had to do was hit “pause” and take a short walk down the hall to find some sweet porcelain relief.
I kept watching.
Everyone in the cast performs admirably, but the real show-stealer is Naomie Harris. She plays the part of Selena to the bone. Just one look at her, and you know that she’s a survivor. She will stay alive at all costs. But more than that, she is the brains, the guts, and the heart of our little band of survivors. Her performance genuinely moved and enthralled me. It doesn’t hurt that she’s mighty easy on the eyes.Like EVIL DEAD, DOG SOLDIERS, THE THING, or THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE, 28 DAYS LATER is yet another example of how a small and talented cast, a great script, a relatively modest budget, and some inventive film making can render a far superior horror film. You can be damn sure I’ll be back on opening night for more – and I’ll have my running shoes on for the sprint through the parking garage afterward.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=6824&reviewer=258
originally posted: 03/13/03 17:25:32
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Sundance Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Sundance Film Festival series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2003 Los Angeles Film Festival. For more in the 2003 Los Angeles Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
27-Jun-2003 (R)
DVD: 21-Oct-2007
UK
01-Nov-2002 (18)
Australia
04-Sep-2003 (MA)
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