4. 28 Days Later

Danny Boyle's "zombie" masterpiece 28 Days Later sits at number 4 on my list not only because it's a great film that was made for relatively peanuts, but also because it moved the world from the Romero "drag your feet and lumber everywhere" zombies, to the much more intriguing and horrifying "I'll chase you the fuck down, puke blood in your mouth, and then beat you effing senseless" zombies. The new zombie dynamic has taken hold and thanks to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, zombie's are actually scary again.

I had forgotten that 28 Days Later started off with the exact origin of where the infection began, when a group of activists breaks into an animal testing facility to try and free some deceptively adorable chimpanzees. Lesson number 1 learned from 28 Days Later: When a doctor tells you that monkeys are fucked up, you listen to him and don't release said monkeys into the same room as you. They will go all kinds of rage on you and that benefits no one.

And after that little debacle, we're greeted with a "28 Days Later..." title card and a none too flattering shot of Cillian Murphy's flaccid tube steak as he wakes from an unexplained coma. And the real story begins. Murphy's Jim finds himself in a desolate London, looking for some sort of human life or an explanation about what's going on. He meets Selena and some other guy who Selena proceeds to baseball bat the shit out of leaving just her and Jim to survive until they meet Frank and Hannah, the father daughter combo who are looking for help to get them to salvation. The adventure sets forth.

The atmosphere of the film is what sets the film on the right path from the off. Cillian Murphy spends the first 10 minutes of the film with as much freedom as anyone could ever want, but is totally isolated and alone. That's scary in its own right, but add some murderous retard-strong zombies into the mix and you've got a pretty epic breed of terror. Our introduction to the rage infected masses is probably the most horrifying shot in the film. A church full of bodies fills the frame and as soon as Jim says "Hello" from the church balcony, several bodies dart upright and just stare at him gap jawed and dripping with entrails. Super nicely done.

You may notice that this doesn't quite look like most other movies, but you can't put your finger on it. Well, let me demystify it for you. Danny Boyle shot the entire film on a Canon XL1, a prosumer DV camera. How they uprezzed the footage to have it not look like total dogshit on the big screen, I'll never know. That's the real mystery. Although it was not filmed traditionally, it still had many of Danny Boyle's little charms without feeling like he had just knocked you over and smashed the camera repeatedly into your eyes. But just so you're warned, if you don't like shots that are tilted then 28 Days Later isn't for you because this movie is dutch angle as fuck.

28 Days Later suffers from a slight case of Alex Garland syndrome (he's the writer) as the first two acts of the movie are great, character driven acts that are actually about the relationships and not the situation, and then the third act has some sort of crazy monster thrown in in order to "spice things up" a la Sunshine, which he also wrote. This time however the tables are backwards and it's the humans they meet that turn out to be monsters, but monsters nonetheless and slightly unnecessary, albeit much more interesting than Burny McSunface from Sunshine.

There are just a few things that happen towards the end that I wouldn't buy at a flea market. The first being that the military bloke's they meet up with are out of their minds with sexual frustration after all of 28 days. Yes, that sure is a long time, but apparently in Alex Garland's world, being sex-free for a month makes dudes rape crazy pedophiles. Really? After one month? Maybe I've just got better control over my impulses (doubtful). The only other thing I didn't really buy but will accept due to the massive amounts of badassery is just how quickly Jim turns from a somewhat passive dude into a fucking night ninja, bamfing (Nightcrawler reference, Holler) through the house and decimating these trained military men one after the other. It just would NOT happen. He makes some smart moves and generally is awesome, but he takes down a lot of guys (that's what she said).

Despite my little hold ups about the third act, I truly love this movie. The way it scared me the first time I saw it I will never forget and now I appreciate so much more what it did for the horror genre. Thanks Danny Boyle.

Comments

[jspg71]

Love this & Weeks!