28 DAYS LATER (2003)
Starring Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris
If only "28 Days Later" didn't wimp out in its final
shots with a syrupy ending, the film may have gone
down as a true masterpiece of zombie horror. But the
first 95 percent of this British action-horror film
stack up as the best Britain has offered in the realm
of horror in decades. Way better than "Resident
Evil."
After a rousing opening where animal rights activists
unleash a deadly plague contained in caged monkeys,
Danny Boyle's film carries on in a style very
reminiscent of the British sci-fi film "Day of the
Triffids," with a man awakening in an abandoned
hospital, stumbling outside to find that the world has
ended.
The virus unleashed by the animal rights activists has
infected mankind. London is now a wasteland. Most of
the human race has become snarling, rabid, grotesque
zombies eager to infect anyone that doesn’t share the
virus already. Our hero is rescued by a small group of
uninfected humans. Eventually, however, the group
dwindles down to just him and one mistrusting woman,
who threatens to leave him at the first sign of
weakness.
Although marketed as a zombie horror film, "28 Days
Later" isn't a zombie film, because its world has been
taken over by the infected living, not the walking
dead. But the movie plays like a nonstop tribute to
Romero all the same. There's a free-for-all at a
supermarket very reminiscent of "Dawn of the Dead," a
Bub-like zombie captured by the military a la "Day of
the Dead," a viral outbreak that seems straight out of
Stephen King's "The Stand" and an army of crazed
killers not unlike the ones we saw in George Romero's
"The Crazies" or David Cronenberg's "Rabid."
Boyle amps up the anxiety and intensity greater than
all those movies were able to accomplish, and the
first half of "28 Days Later" stacks up as a real nail
biter. Things slow down a bit toward the end when the
group of survivors hooks up with a small military
outpost, and most of the actions revolves conflicts
with people, not with "infected's."
Where "28 Days Later" really does disappoint is in its closing moments. Happy
endings always disappoint in apocalyptic films. Here, Boyle really should have
taken another page from Romero and ended the film "Dawn of the Dead"-style. The
film also takes itself a tad too seriously. There's no camp value to the
proceedings -- another minus. But all in all, it stacks up as a solid and
outstanding film.