87. 28 Days Later

 

Hello again...

I'll admit, I've been gone for a very long period this time round, but let's gloss over that as well as the fact that a main character in some of my previous posts is no longer part of this story...

However, we are in a new chapter and I am newly motivated thanks to my supportive and adoring boyfriend who encouraged me to come back to my blogs (thanks Jay).

On that note, let us get to the point following my short and sweet briefing on my whereabouts. 

About a week ago (give or take) we went to see 28 Days Later. Now as you may be aware, this is not a new movie. However, Cineworld were partaking in a Danny Boyle season and thus this was one of the movies shown. 

If you are a regular visitor to this blog you will know my views on zombies. Despite this, it was my idea to watch the movie as it was one I have always wanted to see but never gotten around to. I wasn't disappointed and it was certainly worth the wait.

I haven't put a spoiler warning up here as the movie has been out long enough so if you haven't seen it then tough!

The movie begins with a glimpse of backstory. A small snippet into how the nightmare began. Animal cruelty, need I say more?

Then straight off the bat we were met with a naked Cillian Murphy. That was certainly more of Mr Murphy than I was expecting to see, and in no way really relevant, but fair warning to you and to some people out there it's an incentive to watch the movie so cant really complain.

So Cillian's character, Jim, wakes up in hospital following an accident where he was knocked down. He's got a nasty head injury and once he has let himself out of his locked room (I think it's so considerate that at the end of the world they locked him in to keep him safe and then threw the key under the door should he wake up and want to flee) he wanders around London looking for literally anyone.

Now this particular scene reminds me of an episode of The Twilight Zone. Its from series 1, may even very well be the first episode, and a man wakes up to find everyone gone, but as if they have just stepped out for a moment. Messes with your mind.

It isn't long before Jim runs into the infected and is saved by Selena who is brutal in her survival skills but they make a cute pairing and thus this sets up some of the dynamic for the rest of the movie. We then watch our twosome survive until they come across two other survivors and then they head to Manchester where there is promise of a cure.

They get there, Domhnall Gleeson's dad dies (I know his name, its Brendan), and turns out the cure is just Christopher Eccleston's crazy plan of restarting humanity and he'd promised his sex starved soldiers women in order to start over. The downside of course is the three survivors were a woman, a child and a man. Naturally the man had to go, and yet no one seemed to be concerned at the fact a child was involved, if anything those men were hungry for that poor girl. 

So Jim, after being discarded, goes on a little vigilante trip and causes hell in some almost vampiric manner and then after a small tragic event we cut to the threesome living happily in Cornwall trying to flag down a passing plane.

What I wasn't expecting was the original ending being added on following the credits under 'What If?'. It was by chance we stayed and we were one of the only ones who did so I'm wondering if anyone else realised there was an additional scene. This after credits marvel showed the original ending where Jim died and so all was for naught, leaving Selena and the girl who I cannot remember the name of (edit: its Hannah) sad and alone. 

Now for a zombie movie, there luckily wasn't very many zombies which pleased me. I felt like 28 Days Later focused more on the after effects of an apocalypse rather than the event itself which was actually quite refreshing. I know quite a few modern zombie things like The Walking Dead do something similar, but I find they focus on more how to live with and manage the dead, whereas this movie showed you the narrative of the events and then focused almost solely on the survivors and how they navigated being in the thick of it. It only took 28 days for Britain to come to a standstill, the way these people adapted you would have thought they had been like this for years, but it hadn't even been a month and we saw friendships bloom and people go mad.

If anything, this movie was a look into the psychological after effects rather than the physical. Take Jim's parents for example, they took their own lives clearly very early on in the outbreak as hope was lost pretty much instantly. What was an eye opener was the fact it was insinuated the country was put on lockdown and left to die, everywhere else were fine. That hit a little different following Covid I'll admit.  Of course it sounded like a conspiracy theory from a man condemned to death, but we all saw how true it was when Jim saw that plane even if he was due to die. I think that is slightly more of a twist if the original ending had stayed, hope would have been lost for the women even more so as they wouldn't have known, there would have been no Jim to drive them to salvation.

I liked this movie most for the fact it was so quintessentially British. The humour was dry, the situation dire, and ultimately every character was some form of arsehole. The visuals were grainy, which drive home the low budget indie movie from a lifetime ago, and the jumpscares were short, sharp and effective. The plot was progressive and yet also easy to follow as not an awful lot happened really, but what did happen made you think, and it was the thinking that was dangerous. On first glance 28 Days Later is your typical zombie flick, but it isn't until you pause to mull over everything you have learned you realise you've filled in the gaps and it's so much more than that. This movie is sad. This movie is gritty. This movie its gutsy. Death, destruction, and the loss of hope. How scary is it to think how quickly a whole country was wiped out? 28 days and we knew of less than 10 survivors. I know we are only a small country in the grand scheme of things, but 28 days. Take into account Covid and how quickly that spread and you get a different level of realism. In 2002 this film was fiction, in 2022 this movie was far too close to reality for comfort. In 2024 we can see the funny side almost, but the thought is still there just the like scene at the end of the movie... what if?

To shut me up then before I talk nonsense forever, overall I give 28 Days Later an 8/10. This movie stands the test of time. Visually it hasn't lived up to much but to be fair without remastering anything, has anything from the noughties? I watched a music video from Blur the other day and wondered if my eyes had given up on me, but turns out I'm just used to this new found technology making pictures better than real life. But narrative wise it is still one of the best zombie movies I have watched, and in terms of apocalyptic movies I feel this one should be high on the list. If anything it's underrated and I'm excited for the third instalment next year!

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