Review of 28 Days Later

28 Days Later brings the zombie culture back from the dead

I’m not a zombie guy. I don’t understand why they have become such a huge part of our culture, and quite frankly, it’s annoying. So I decided to go to the source. 28 Days Later reanimated our society’s love for zombies, and it added something that zombie movies had largely lacked up until then: a reason.

A rage virus. Simple. Brilliant. And I guess up until 2002, we really didn’t care about why zombies were zombies. But now we do. As a society, we needed more. Thank you, Danny Boyle. It was almost enough to make me forget I’m just not a zombie guy.

I got myself a little turned around in evaluating this movie. I’m staunchly opposed to the subject matter, as well as the overall genre of slasher/horror, and it’s a B movie at heart but never really tries to aspire to anything else. That said, the close-ups and the gotcha scares were still a little too cheap for me. I prefer my thrillers to be psychological.

Which is eventually what I got. The three travelers who were still alive finally find a refuge of some sort, only to discover that their troubles weren’t over and weren’t coming from the rage virus anymore. Damn. Gut shot. People really are alike all over. This was a brilliant turn, and once again, I was impressed with this low budget slasher film. But then Cillian Murphy goes on some impossible rescue mission that lasts too long, gets way too confusing, has more than its share of jump cuts, and shoves a love story in our face that didn’t need to be there.

In the end, there were some relatively clever concepts for the time, including planting a seed that would ultimately grow into The Walking Dead. But try as I may, I’m just not a zombie guy.

5/10

Dustin Fisher