While Breck Eisner tried his best to distinguish his “Crazies” from zombies, Danny Boyle took a different approach and dove right in to fuse the two in 28 Days Later, with the “infected” being afflicted with, as the terrified scientist in the lab so eloquently put it, “rage”. I know that it’s been really, really catching on, but I’m not that big a fan of the zombie genre. Shaun of the Dead and don’t really count in my books, as they’re clearly genre benders and they’re supposed to have a broader appeal. Really, Boyle is the only guy to have offered me something I’d want to watch, and man have I watched this one a lot. At first it was because of the awesome empty street shots he was able to get of downtown London – I’d never seen anything like that before. I didn’t think that could be done, especially on such a small budget. This was one of the first zombie flicks to use the “fast zombie” rather than the lumbering “slow zombie” Romero installed as the standard, and that concept totally blew my mind too. I always figured that I could stay one step ahead of zombies if “World War Z” ever came knocking, but these crazy bloodthirsty running zombies totally screwed up that plan.
After a quick little patient zero moment at the beginning of the film where we see how this running zombie virus was unleashed on Great Britain, 28 days later (you see what I did there?) everything begins with a buck-naked Cillian Murphy playing a bike courier named Jim waking up on a operating room bed to an abandoned hospital and wandering the empty streets of London looking for some answers as to where the heck everyone went. It’s not long before he’s chased out of a church full of craven psychopaths and discovers that a blood-borne infection has taken hold of the British Isle causing it to be cut off from the rest of the world – seems to be a recurring theme in British horror films. Well, Jim hooks up with a few more survivors and they make a desperate pilgrimage to where they hope they will find a cure for this plague, only to discover the cure might be worse than the disease.
It’s a lo-fi film with a high concept. Basically, it’s what Danny Boyle does best. It’s got thrills, chases, fights, guns, blood, explosions, a few laughs, and its even got Brendan Gleeson in there somewhere.
I know a lot of people like the slow traditional ones (probably because they are not in good shape enough to run more than 50 yards!) but fast zombies are so much more awesome and terrifying. If you enjoyed this movie, I recommend 28 Weeks Later.
I liked 28 Weeks Later, but it was a little bit more of a straight ahead horror, and lacked the edginess of 28 Days that I liked so much. Did you dig the concept of the sentient zombie, with Robbie Carlysle stalking his kids? I thought that it kind of went against the whole concept of these zombies – that they were more like a force of nature, rather than some kind of targetted malevolent force like a Vampire or Frankenstein. Granted, at the end of 28 Days the final zombie kind of acted in a bit of a conscious way – for the sake of poetic justice though.
Best part of the movie for me was the tunnel scene where the rats were running away as the cast tried to get the flat tire replaced. Talk about gripping and tension filled.
Nice mention to World War Z too. I just started it after reading Zombie Survival Guide. But we all know that people who are infected with the rage aren’t zombies. So purists like me can enjoy this as it’s no blasphemous zead entertainment:P
Just finishing Zombie Survival Guide and diving into World War Z myself. Weehoo!
One of my favourite scenes is right after the tunnel when they make it to the grocery store. The music, the gliding on shopping carts, the irradiated apples. It’s a weird Brady Bunch kind of interlude to the freaky zombiness going on everywhere else.
I’ve got a buddy at work who’s all about the Zombie world, he’s been going on about WWZ for a while now. He’s the exact kind of purist you’re talking about.
This movie is solely responsible for my fear of zombies, and after Synders reboot of Dawn Of The Dead and watching it while preggo, let us just say, I’m sickly paranoid now. Boyles work here is pure genius. I’ll take that a step further and say possibly his best work ever, but more worthy of an Oscar than Slumdog Millionaire, and that was a damn fine film.
28 Days Later was when I had my first inkling that Danny Boyle could direct just about anything. It took me watching Millions and Slumdog Millionaire to really confirm that, but to have someone like Boyle running the show could go a long way to explaining why the resurgence of the Zombie flick was so suucessful and not just a flash in the pan.
When my wife was pregnant the first time, I totally had a flash of Dawn of the Dead when I first saw our baby kick out her stomach a little. Funny how stuff sticks with you.
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[...] watch Zombieland). As soon as I got home from work I finally sat down to watch my blu-ray copy of 28 Days Later. While it might seem like a bit of a gyp since it’s a 1080 format presentation of a film that [...]