“No, there’s no government. No police. No Army. No TV. No radio. No electricity. You’re the first uninfected person we’ve seen in six days.”
My dear lord, find me a worse year in general for film. Go on.
2003 has some surprisingly good films that many hold dear to them – but who can forget all the atrocities that we were also cursed with? Gigli, From Justin to Kelly, The Cat in the Hat, The Room, Gods and Generals, Kangaroo Jack, Boat Trip. I could go on, but that was enough suffering for one day.
So instead of looking at the doom of 2003, why not look at the doom in the near future? Say 28 days afterwards? Or 28 days in the future?
Or, 28 Days Later.
I promise, I will never make a joke so awful again in my life.
Yes, the zombie flick was as raw as British cinema and the flesh that the undead ate. As much as I have a complete disdain for everything 2003, there were a few honourable mentions: Finding Nemo, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, School of Rock, Elf, Love Actually.
Still to see: Lost in Translation, Kill Bill vol. 1. Somehow, Kill Bill has eluded me all these years despite calling myself a Tarantino fan.
By the way, 28 Days Later technically came out in the UK in 2002, but I don’t care. It came out worldwide in ’03. Fight me.
Onto our feature film.
The Skinny
28 Days Later is a 2002/2003 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Sunshine) starring Cillian Murphy (Inception, Batman Begins), Naomie Harris (Moonlight, Skyfall), Brendan Gleeson (Braveheart, Harry Potter) and Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who, Shallow Grave).
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28 Days Later shows a world infected by a zombie virus and a man, Jim (Murphy), discovering this after being in a coma during the 28 days that the infection has spread. He meets Selena (Harris) and Mark (Noah Westley), fellow survivors that tell him what is going on. After meeting more survivors, Frank (Gleeson) and Hannah (Megan Burns) who tell Jim of a safe place, they all look to try and get to the safe zone while facing a nation of zombies.
Director’s Cut
I forget so much about this film and the many qualities that make this such a classic. Danny Boyle has covered nearly all genres in his directing career and here he shows that he is just as good at making horror films, as he is anything else. 28 Days Later revives the zombie genre (to pardon the pun) after a dry spell over the past decade. The eighties and early nineties were the last to really perfect it; and the Brits made it cool again. Not only is it a scarily nerve-wracking watch, there are plenty of societal undertones to contemplate and a questioning of how society would react in meltdown.
The plot is one of the reasons why it’s such an entertaining two hours. Before we even meet Jim, we see shaky cams in an animal testing lab. Chimpanzees are wired up to watch human atrocities while they are being tested. This leads to a group of animal rights activists breaking into the facility and releasing the monkeys, despite the protests of the scientist, who tells them they’re contagious. The first monkey released, infects one of them, causing the virus to start.
Off the bat, I think there’s an ironic message in this opening scene. Just because you are wanting to do good, don’t think you know better than scientists. I find it a refreshing change that Boyle would take a dig at those wanting to do good, end up dooming mankind.
Then we meet Jim, all alone in a hospital. The isolation he faces is eerie. There is little movement around him. Little sound. Only for him to call out and garner the attention of zombies. After meeting Selena and Mark, they visit Jim’s parent’s house to see if they survived, only to find them dead after committing suicide, showing the unforgiving environment they are in. When Mark becomes infected moments later, Selena kills him to re-establish that point. Once Selena and Jim meet Frank and Hannah, we see a movement in the plot as they move on to Manchester to find a safe haven.
What they find is a military blockade ran by Major Henry West (Eccleston) as the plan to survive is to wait for all the zombies to starve themselves to death and rape all the women to repopulate the country. Not only do they find out this shocking revelation, but they also find that the world is not infected as they believed, but the infection hasn’t left the UK.
Again, the spread of misinformation even in post-apocalyptic times suggests that 28 Days Later calls into question the reliability of news sources and where they come from. In a world of fake news, this message is as needed now as it was back then. To add to that, the rape twist is both sickening, yet gritty. It’s an issue that does not get explored much in cinema for good reason, but it’s timed perfectly here. The idea that humanity, even at its most frail, will still fail when the bastards exist. And I don’t mean that in the unmarried sense.
Best of all, is how the zombies move. Look at old zombie classics like Dawn of the Dead and you will understand how the tension is slowly built. Here, there is nowhere to run or hide. They are coming at you so quickly, that they revolutionised the horror in zombie films. No longer was it OK to just run from the slow-moving creatures, but instead it became all about surviving by defence. When I first watched this, I remembered how scary a zombie world could really be.
Then, the actor is solid too. Prior to this, Cillian Murphy wasn’t a worldwide star. 28 Days Later’s $8 million budget reimbursed itself ten times over and with that, Murphy began a long journey to Hollywood. Here, he is aggressive when confronted and clueless in the opening ten minutes of the film. It must be hard to star in a movie where you know the plot, yet you have to pretend that you have no idea what has happened. Naomie Harris is ever-present as the strong feminist character Selena. She finds herself in charge for large parts, leading a bewildered Jim through the post-world. Although Brendan Gleeson does a stellar job as Frank, the real applaud must go to Christopher Eccleston as West. The way he turns his role from strong army veteran, trying to help save the country, to a sadistic, opportunistic rapist, is strong for the little time that he spends on the screen.
Whether you are a zombie purist or not, it cannot be disputed that 28 Days Later is a staple of the genre’s diet. The new fear that Boyle brought to the monsters made it a different watch compared to those that inspired it. Plus, it started a trend of British horror films, which wasn’t all bad. 28 Days…would be made into a sequel, 28 Weeks Later and there is talks of a third one in the near future, albeit, it’s all hearsay.
It’s not every year that a film can terrify you, sicken you, question yourself and keep you on edge. Then again, not every film is this.
The Drive IN 