28 Days Later

Review by Clint Morris

There's this game in the computer arcades - one that's so violent you have to play it with a curtain around you so youngsters don't see you playing.

You're the man behind a rifle that's firing bullets at ravaging zombies - with teeth seething, and blood dripping from their pores - that are racing towards the screen.

For a while there, Danny Boyle's new movie is reminiscent of the game, except, of course, you get a lot more plot out of the movie than you do from the one dollar you pop into the game.

In fact, there's a hell of a lot of plot, and quite a darn good storyline serving as the coating on Boyle's [Trainspotting, The Beach] film, that it's tough to simply slap it into a box and label it 'zombie film'.

Not to be confused with the Sandra Bullock starrer 28 Days [as if they'd do a sequel to that unremarkable number], 28 Days Later pinpoints how one little faux pas can turn into one heck of a god awful catastrophe.

In this case, a group of English folk that think they're doing some good by freeing some lab-caged monkeys from their cages. Unfortunately, the monkey's are infected with a contagious virus - one that kills it's carrier within minutes, before leaving them to play host to the zombie within - and pretty soon, all of England is tainted.

Jim awakens from his coma to face the after effect head-on. The streets are deserted, the city is bare, and there's not a sound around. Wandering the streets, he eventually comes across two other people and learns the terrible truth: London has been evacuated, and everyone left behind has been turned into "infesteds," the insanely violent, zombie-like victims of the rage virus.

Determined not to become a statistic, he teams with three other survivors, Selena (Naomie Harris), Frank (Brendan Gleeson), and his young daughter Hannah (Megan Burns), and together they head to a military outpost on the outskirts of London, which they hear on the radio is an outpost for those unaffected.

Smart, exciting, well performed, well shot, good looking...all words you normally wouldn't associate with a Zombie or Slasher film. That's because it isn't.

It's so much more.

What makes this scare-fest all the more better is that the characters have been so well written and consequently so well performed, that we do give two hoots about them, something that doesn't happen much with films of similar theme.

And, unlike some of the competing blockbusters up against Boyle's flick, 28 Days Later doesn't need a huge budget, garage full of special or computer effects, or major talent to draw you in - it does it simply by telling its tale effectively, with real enthusiasm and sheer nail-biting thrills.

3.5 out of 5

28 Days Later
Australian release: Thursday September 4th
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Megan Burns, Christopher Eccleston, Brendan Gleeson.
Director: Danny Boyle.
Website: Click here

Brought to you by MovieHole