Theatre of the Dead #9 - 28 Days Later... (2002)

Director: Danny Boyle Stars: Cillian Murphy

Review:

Correct me if I am wrong, but throughout most of the 90s I have not seen and could not find any significant zombie movie. In 2002, the zombie genre was revived by the movie 28 Days Later.

The movie opens with a group of animal rights activist attempts to free some monkeys that were used in scientific experiments. "No! You dont understand! They are infected!" "With what?" "Rage..." Actually it is a virus, that it is highly contagious, that if any blood of the infected gets into you through any orifice, it would turn you into one of them. One of the activist opens the cage, and gets bitten. Several seconds later she gets up and bite the others, and the story actually starts 28 days later of this event.

Jim on an empty street.

Our protagonist, Jim, woke up from a coma in a abandoned hospital. He wandered around and meet the zombies, but saved by two guys with molotov cocktails. They saw some lights outside a flat on a resident building, which supposedly there is no electricity. They met a father and a girl, who have a radio. Despite radio station has been shut down, there is a broadcast about the salvation of the infection by the military. Without water supply, they decided to go visit the source of the broadcast.

Up until 28 Days Later, the virus theory had not been proposed on a movie before, which I'll take it as an inspiration from the video game Resident Evil. However from this point on, there is virtually no development on the cause of zombies, and we took it for granted. Virus theory is the most scientifically possible explaination but there is no more imagination and originality, resulting in many repetitive zombie movies to come. The zombies are also more or less the same. They can run, which adds to a lot of intensity to the chase scenes, in which the Romero zombies actually you can just dodge them.

We watch the zombies closing in with the shadows.

The main theme of this movie is solitary. The scene that Jims woke up alone in the hospital, wandered around in streets which normally would be occupied by hundreds of people, adds to the mood of solitary. When they meet the father and girl, they treated them as guests with alcohol that they had been saving. They were also desperate to see other people, since they could not stand with the loneliness. They drove off on an empty highway, but they were much mild tampered since they have each other. These all surrounds the main theme, and brings a more artistic style to the zombie genre which it have not been done before.

Maltesers?

Despite I myself enjoyed this movie, some people called it a bullshit movie and counted the top 5 bullshit moment in the movie. I do agree that this movie is full of bullshit. The biggest problem with me is the military. In my opinion the movie should have ended right before they reach the military base, and the plot with the military was so stupid it ruined the whole thing. It turns out that the military sends out broadcast to attract people to them for pussies. Yes I am serious. These nymphomaniacs could not stand 28 days without pussies.

Also when Jim turns against them, he suddenly became a super-human that can takes out a group of well trained and armed troopers, with his bare hands, and before that we see him crying for his companion to wait for him. Another bullshit I do agree is that the movies contains embedded advertisements everywhere. When will the manager understand that we consumer will not buy a chocolate because a character in a movie eats it?

From this point on the zombie genre came back full force, but in quantity not in quality. 28 Days Later may have been the most decent zombie movie in recent times, and ironically it is the first to bring the whole genre back, which means it's all downhill from here.