Movies - 28 Days Later

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	Movies - 28 Days Later

28 Days Later (2002) is a post-apocalyptic science fiction movie directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. 28 Days Later is set in Britain at the beginning of the 21st century.

Style and inspiration

The film is Boyle's re-interpretation of the "zombie flick" genre, and was very well received both in the United Kingdom and internationally.

:"the power of the film is not that it hasn't been done before, but that it hasn't been done recently." :Kim Newman, Empire

Similarities in the concept could be drawn to David Cronenberg's horror film Rabid
and in storyline to George Romero's "Living Dead" series of films. The film also bears similarity to John Wyndham's novel The Day of the Triffids
in several of its story elements, notably in scenes where the central character awakes in a deserted hospital amidst a post-apocalyptic London. The plot device of the military post also bears noticeable resemblances to the warren of the Efrafa in Watership Down.

There are also similarities to the Resident Evil videogame series.

Boyle has written that 28 Days Later is not a science fiction or horror film, but rather a drama. Indeed, the film's "zombie moments" are few and far between, and the bulk of the running time is dedicated to character study and building suspense. The film's score was composed by British composer John Murphy and was released in a score/song compilation in 2003.

The film is briefly parodied by another British film, Shaun of the Dead
, which also deals with a zombie outbreak in Great Britain; in Shaun, the cause the infection in 28 Days Later (rage infected monkeys) is briefly dismissed in a (cut-off) news report as 'bull-'. The line that was cut-off, implied to be "bullshit", is also thought to be "bollocks", but the cut-off happens so quickly that it's difficult to tell which line was used.

Tagline: Day 1: Exposure - Day 3: Infection - Day 8: Epidemic - Day 15: Evacuation - Day 20: Devastation

Synopsis

The film begins in at an animal testing laboratory at the University of Cambridge, where several Animal Liberation Front-style activists break into the laboratory at night and discover chimpanzees being subjected to torturous experiments. A technician desperately tries to stop the group from releasing the animals, claiming that they have been infected with an extremely potent viral disease known only as "Rage", which has made them irrational and extremely violent. The activists refuse to believe the technician and release a chimpanzee, which immediately attacks a female activist. The woman, screaming that she is burning, is within half a minute transformed into a state of irreversible perpetual rage, and attacks the others in the room...

Twenty-eight days later, Jim (Cillian Murphy), a good-natured Irish bicycle courier, wakes up in a deserted London hospital. Exploring the hospital, he discovers that he is the only person present; the hospital is deserted and trashed. Leaving the hospital and crossing Westminster Bridge towards the Houses of Parliament, Jim discovers that London is in the same state; the streets are empty, the great monuments loom silently and omniously over a deserted, empty metropolis. The streets are filled with signs of something terrible having happened: Jim walks past an overturned London bus, sees government posters declaring "QUARANTINE", and wanders endlessly alone through streets filled with the debris of everyday life. He comes across a looted newsagents shop and briefly looks at a newspaper announcing that the Prime Minister has declared a state of emergency, then comes across an advertising board surrounding the Statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus, which is covered in panicked, hand-written notes searching for missing people.

As darkness falls, Jim enters a church (on the wall of which is scrawled 'REPENT THE END IS EXTREMELY FUCKING NIGH') and, looking over the main hall sees piles of corpses spread over the floor and pews. Not everyone present is dead, however; his presence attracts the attention of a handful of people standing, hyper-alert, in the church hall, and a seemingly-possessed Catholic priest lurches towards Jim, snarling and grasping in a frightening way, prompting Jim to knock him to the ground. As he flees the church, Jim is chased by several snarling, blood-stained people who pursue him with almost super-human speed; before they can catch him, however, he is rescued by two people dressed in police riot gear who kill his pursuers by exploding a petrol station, then rush him to their hideout in an abandoned section of the London Underground. Jim's rescuers are Mark (Noah Huntley), an amiable but world-weary young man, and Selena (Naomie Harris), a hardened and ruthlessly pragmatic young woman. Jim, terrified and confused, demands to know what has happened since the traffic accident that put him in his coma; and so, Mark and Selena outline what has happened in the last twenty-eight days.

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Movies - 28 Days Later

Style and inspiration

Synopsis

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