I don’t consider myself a true horror buff; I haven’t seen a Dario Argento movie, much less a Lucio Fulci; I don’t read Fangoria… hell, I’ve never even seen a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. I do, however, have a marked interest for the bizarre, the violent, the absurd, the obscene, the grindhouse… the only thing keeping me from acting upon that interest is the guilt I get whenever I pick up Last House on the Left at the video store and think I could be renting The Unbearable Lightness of Being instead. That said, I embrace horror films, mainstream or not… but this year horror movies have been terrible. Every single one I’ve seen (not that many, mind you, but more than enough) has fallen far from the mark. Just as I was about to lose all hope, director Danny Boyle came out with a film that showed hope for horror cinema. 28 Days Later is not so much a surprise as it is a gift: a smart, tense horror movie that provokes (oh, but don’t worry, it has problems, too).

Don’t you hate it when you wake up and no one’s home? Jim (Cilian Murphy) has the same problem. Hospitalized after getting hit by a car, Jim wakes up to find the hospital completely empty – as if it’s been ransacked. A quick peek into the outside world reveals that London is suffering the same fate; there’s not a single soul in sight. That is, until bloody, incoherent citizens try to kill him, only to be set on fire by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley), two survivors of the great plague that has wiped out England. See, activists decided that it would be a good thing to free rage-infested monkeys, which ended up biting them all and turning them into a bunch of none-too-happy people called “The Infected”, sort of bubonic zombies. Jim teams up with Mark and Selena to try and find other survivors and maybe… just maybe, a cure.

I’ve always been partial to this kind of story; one guy (or more) against a bunch of mutated freaks. They scrounge for food and weapons and then they just try to survive. It’s the basis (more or less) for Stephen King’s The Stand, for video games like System Shock 2 and for various films like Resident Evil (which sucked), for example. But I’ve noticed a trend in all of these that I’m not particularly fond of. They do such a great job of setting up the movie that when it actually gets into a main plot (here, it’s joining up with some soldiers let by a positively insane Christopher Eccleston), I don’t really care anymore. Once they get bigger guns (System Shock 2) or gather up way too many survivors and duke it out existentially (The Stand)… it’s just not interesting. The initial scenes of Jim wandering through the city, picking up cans of cola and other bits and pieces are so effective that the second half seems positively uninspired beside it. Instead of continuing on with the (rather important) theme that mankind is going down the crapper, the film verges into a generic action/horror flick that also serves as a half-assed parable for the way males act within society. Yeah… okay. Sure. Where’s my movie?

From the very first shot of a completely deserted London, you’ll realize one thing: the movie has atmosphere. And what atmosphere indeed. Boyle’s always been good at mood; Trainspotting’s drab lighting and drabber atmosphere gave me a headache, but I’m sure it was intentional. Shot entirely on digital, 28 Days Later is a visceral, tightly edited film (athough sometimes, too much so; I bet I missed out on some good gore because Boyle had sixteen different shots within the same second). The hugely impressive shots of a deserted London (which I’m still in considerable awe over… I mean, the movie was made with 8 million dollars!) contrast well with the dark, gritty scenes inside the bunker.

Of course, if we speak of horror films, we must speak of gore. The film is violent, if not overly graphic; there are no decapitations or trendy something-slices-through-half-my-face-which-then-proceeds-to-slide-off scenes. I can honestly say that, although the movie doesn’t exactly rely on shock tactics and buckets of blood, the makeup (which actually looks like real skin, not CGI garbage) and few gore effects rival the best of the big-budget productions (this movie was made on eight million dollars!!!) in Hollywood.

Fresh from working with big stars in two big Hollywood flops (although he did do two smaller British films between The Beach and this), Boyle picks a cast mostly of unknowns for his film. The actors are all mostly competent; the two leads aren’t given much to stretch their range upon but they do nicely. It’s the great Brendan Gleeson who shines as Frank, a survivor who teams up with the two leads along the way. You’ll also find Christopher Eccleston in a typical military-hardass-on-the-brink-of-total-madness role.

28 Days Later is not a revolution in horror; it draws too much on classic zombie and siege films (the Romero movies, Assault on Precinct 13) to be completely original. It still, however, delivers more thrills than any “straight” horror movie (meaning, with gore and stuff, not ghosts and such) I’ve seen since the original Final Destination in 2000. It’s certainly worth checking out.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older