A teenage girl takes up a specialist
military sniper rifle
and makes a perfect shot of it with no training, improper handling and
in very low visibility. A helicopter flies – nose down – close enough
to the ground to clear a path by slicing its attackers into a bloody
shower of body parts. A victim who could carry the antibody to the
virus that wiped out a whole population is left alone behind minimal
security in a medical centre.
They’re all massive holes in the plot of 28 Weeks Later and
they’d ruin many lesser movies that take themselves seriously.
Such is the power of 28
Weeks Later’s
ability to take you by the scruff of the neck and just sweep you up in
the bloody, horrible spectacle of it all. It doesn’t give you time to
think, it just thrusts you into a claustrophobic cocoon of thrills and
terror from the opening frame.
After Danny Boyle bought searing genre filmmaking back to British
shores with 28
Days Later, he went on to the equally well
crafted Sunshine
(now in cinemas). In passing the scripting and directorial reins onto
Spaniard Fresnadillo it looked like 28 Weeks Later
would be another Blair
Witch 2 or Saw 2;
desperate and rushed cash-ins on blistering early success after the
creative principals had moved on and left the studio with the rights to
the name.
But with Boyle as executive producer and having shot
some second unit footage, the grimy, sweaty, crackerjack terror that
made 28 Days
Later so good is still firmly entrenched.
We
meet Don (Carlyle) and his wife Alice (McCormack) holed up with a group
of survivors in the early days when the rage virus is still sweeping
the country. Then arrival of a young boy brings the zombie hordes
chasing him crashing into their country manor safe house, and after
losing everyone – including his wife – Don flees, his guilt at leaving
her tempering his escape.
Six months on and the US military have
cordoned off part of the London docks to start their program of
repopulating England after the infected have starved and the virus has
died out. Don is a caretaker in a high-rise residential tower and looks
forward to the return of his children from overseas, Tammy (Poots) and
Andy (Muggleton).
But the kids – as they’re wont to do – make a
mess of everything, breaking out of the quarantine zone to return to
their suburban London home for photos, clothes and keepsakes and are
shocked to discover Alice, ashen and silent but apparently alive. The
military who’ve seen the kids’ escape show up and takes them all back,
where Alice falls under the care of improbably young army major and
medico Scarlet (Byrne).
More shocking than Alice’s survival is
the presence of the virus in her bloodstream. While still a carrier,
some gene provides her immunity from the cannibalistic mania that
usually accompanies the disease. Despite being under quarantine, Don
uses his access to find her and comes to her in tears, his guilt at
leaving her eating him up. Alice forgives him, they kiss, and Don
turns, killing her and bursting out of the facility to unleash a fresh
outbreak that swarms across London.
With chaos again reigning,
Scarlet, Tammy and Andy are joined by soldier Doyle (Renner) in a chase
to get out alive while Code Red – the destruction of the city – is
ordered and snipers, choppers, the firebombing of the city and the
zombie hordes close in one every side.
Fresnadillo captures the
same urgent, frantic horror Boyle did (no doubt with his exec producer
advising) by the use of effective set design, this time aided by some
great CGI of a deserted, trashed London. The grimy digital stock feels
filthy, like a virus crawling over you, and the handheld war-zone
style, terrifyingly insane rage of the zombies and liberal splattering
of blood and guts complete a visceral, thrilling, scary and very
nihilist horror movie for our times.
It’s full of the action, violence and dread you hope for from the
zombie genre, and in being as good as 28 Days Later, it
joins the canon of some of the best horror movies ever.
4 out
of 5
28 Weeks
Later Australian
release: 10th May,
2007
Cast:Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau Jr,
Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Catherine McCormack Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Website:Click
here.
