28 Days Later(2003)
[ARCHIVE: I still write too much setup here, not enough about the movie itself.]
The zombie genre of film has had a long and eventful life. Far back as "Frankenstein," the grand-pappy of all zombies (in that he is comprised of dead body pieces, which were still moving around), the pure shock value of being reanimated was enough to be creepy. Add in a few minor chords played shockingly on a violin, and you've got yourself a girl-screaming, pants-pooping scary movie.
But in the years that followed, the old things required redefinition to still be scary. Instead of one undead human, entire towns were turned into flesh-eating corpses. After all, if one zombie is scary, then more will be even scarier. And it worked. It brought the edge back. For a little while at least.
By the time we entered the 1980s, innovation started to decline. Film companies, more concerned with the bottom line than the quality level, began to leave zombies behind. Horror turned away from the old standbys; the eerie shadows, the unexplained phenomenon, and zombies; instead, pure shock value become the only thing desired; the volumes of blood, the highly detailed disembowelment.
28 days later... picks up the slack and keeps running, tweaking the zombie definition along the way, to superb results. Directed by Trainspotting's Danny Boyle (who is, unfortunately the same as The Beach's Danny Boyle), 28 takes place in England, where a hazardous virus has turned most of the population into unthinking killing machines. Due to its extremely contagious nature (just one drop of blood and twenty seconds is enough), the virus spreads through most of the population. That's the first five minutes in a nutshell. We pick up the story twenty-eight days later, as Jim (played by Cillian Murphey) wakes from a coma to find his hospital abandoned, and free soda in the lounge!
Whether by choice or by economic status, the movie is decidedly low budget. But like in a handful of cases, it actually works with the plot. In a world where civilization has been taken down a peg or two, the obvious color-bleed borders add a sense of where exactly the world stands. There is no room for gorgeous panoramic shots, or deft camera maneuvering. We're talking about the survival of the human race on a couple of cans of Pepsi and protein bars. Who's going to bother making it look pretty? The acting is adequate, if not inspiring. Brendan Gleeson, as Hannah's Dad is particularly good, and the aforementioned Cillian Murphey does a good job of fleshing out his protagonist; his reactions are quite believable, while still retaining the conventional heroic ideal of "Everything-Will-Be-Okay-In-The-End" (TM).
But to keep you on the edge of your seat, some had to be done about those wacky zombies. Gone are the masses of dim-witted shambling stiffs. In their place stand an army of twitching, blood-spewing, and god-fucking-fast death machines. The Infected have no qualms with jumping over barricades of shopping carts or sprinting up twenty flight of stairs, taking them three steps at a time probably. The physical prowess is still retained, maybe even enhanced, eliminating the run-around-the-retards option. Either you fight, or you run like hell. This is one of those situations where you're either fine, or dead. There is no "caution" status, once you're bitten, hell once a random speck of blood flies into your mouth, you're as good as gone.
Personally I liked the movie a lot. With the careful use (or lack thereof) of sound and tension building, I was pretty much on the edge the entire movie. Something very nicely done was the "Infected-cam" wherein a hand-cam would bum rush the other side of the wall the humans were standing next to, but with zero accompanying sound. This means that most confrontations had only half a second's notice, and happened pretty much any time. This added to the fact that I was chugging Mountain Dew Live Wire like there was no tomorrow, probably overtaxed my heart and shaved a few years off my life. Out of the six dollars I paid, I give this movie $5.00
