DVD review: 28 Days Later (2002)

Anybody who follows my blog will know that I love the apocalyptical creature infested movies where there’s very little chance of survival. Other articles including I Am Legend, 12 Monkeys, Zompires, and Cruesoe’s Horror also comes to mind.

Well, 28 Days Later is another movie to add to my favourites list. England is home to a viral outbreak when activists try to set free monkeys infected by ‘rage’. It takes seconds for people to be infected who are they hell bent on feeding off living human tissue, and so the cycle continues. Within twenty eight days, most of England’s population have been reduced to carcass or infected hosts who have similar traits to zombies.

When Jim (Cillian Murphy, aka Scarecrow in the new Batman remakes) wakes up from a road accident, he finds himself alone in a city raped of its inhabitants. He soon discovers that the most important thing to do is to survive. He stumbles across other survivors and they decide to go to Manchester where the military are setting up an encampment for survivors, but little do they know what other insidious plans the military has for them.

I think this is a very good movie, but there are two things I find annoying. At the beginning, Jim wakes up with a scar on his head that looks fresh. Surely if he had been there for 28 days, the hair would have grown back? The movie does not explain why he was alone and untouched. Second, how did Jim go from a meek, mild-mannered bloke to a rampaging killing machine taking out armed army personnel on his own!?

The latter is the most difficult part of the movie to digest and in its own way, ruined the movie for me. Overall, however, it is a very good movie and if you do watch it and like it, you must watch the sequel, 28 Weeks Later.