Synopsis
Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakes from a coma to find he is one of the few survivors of a deadly virus that spreads through humans turning them into rage filled zombies dubbed The Infected. Wandering round a deserted London he soon hooks up with Selina (Naomie Harris) and father/daughter team Frank and Hannah (Brendan Gleeson/Megan Burns). They travel to Manchester in hope of a cure but find only more terror when they encounter an army platoon holed up in a country house led by the shifty Major West (Christopher Eccelston).

Critique
After a couple of grandiose, starry US semi-failures where does the director of Trainspotting go next? Back to Blighty of course, hoping to regain his edgy street cred with a lo-budget, lo-talent experiment in DV technology and no frills movie making. 28 Days Later never sets out to reinvent the zombie horror genre and uses the clichés attached with this type of movie to it’s advantage, quickly diving into the action of the non-stop story. Zombies are bad, the heroes run and that’s what lies at the core but it’s Boyle’s execution that sets it apart from the Romero Dead series or Hollywood stiffs such as Resident Evil by embracing a new filmmaking medium to a degree that you couldn’t imagine the same images without it. Here we also have a script by Alex Garland (author of The Beach) that elevates characters above the usual fodder and he puts in a brave twist that adds a needed extra dimension to the movie that doesn’t pander to audience expectations and instead lays down some interesting questions.

Picture yourself waking up to the deserted streets of London or, even more farfetched in the UK, a motorway that isn’t jammed with commuters. Well here that experience is thanks to the opportunistic and versatile DV camera allowing Boyle to quickly set-up and capture shots never seen before. Wandering round the middle of it all is the lost Jim, not your classic post-apocalypse hero such as Charlton Heston in The Omega Man but just an everyday bloke, a bike courier of all things, who’s just found himself in the middle of an aftermath. The realism of the situation is kept grounded and believable by Boyle going back to his Shallow Grave roots, keeping things minimal with a constant tension. The atmosphere is also enhanced through the tight script that gets over exposition quickly to concentrate on the life like characters. Much the same as Stephen King’s The Stand it is more about a group of people navigating their way through a worldwide disaster than simply blood and guts, though these are present when needed.

Then things get turned upside down when the gang come across the group of army men holding out against The Infected. Major West has set himself up as the leader of a tribe, cut-off from the outside world and a law unto himself, running things like a modern Colonel Kurtz with disease replacing war in Apocalypse Now. Starved of normality or purpose the movie becomes an intense study of the human condition when compared against the force of a single emotion, pure rage. Boyle brilliantly ties everything together in an exhilarating finale that manages to give horror fans what they want, zombies on full rampage, but at the same time blurring the boundaries between heroics and the anger that exists in all of us. Edited to the apocalyptic, doomed riffs of Godspeed You Black Emperor that imbues the scene with growing dread, it’s a climax to go down as one of the genres best.

Swearing, blood, violence, dead babies, cool soundtrack, this is Boyle back on form and event though it’s a new type of movie for him it still contains his edgy style while creating new ones. Just look at how DV sharply catches the action, the fire, the fat globules of rain and each spatter of blood. While film looks more like a dream, 28 Days Later has the feel of stark reality with memorable images and no nonsense characters to make this one of the best of modern British horrors.

Video
Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen the film looks great thanks to the sharp DV format it was shot in. It may take a while for the viewer to get over the TV look of the film and digital video never adds much depth to the image thanks to it’s low-res which can show up some of the movies special effects, namely a flaming Manchester. Beyond this it is a great experience as the quicker frame rate captures the terrifying speed of the raging Infected while things like rain and blood, usually lost from close-up detail in standard film, are shown in incredible detail.

Audio
The Dolby Digital (5.1) surround sound always adds to the atmosphere of a horror movie and here it is no different. From the opening scene where the caged monkeys are screeching around you to the climax where dialogue, music, action and a thunderstorm are masterfully interwoven to create a brilliantly swirling experience. The sound is also sharp enough for a sharp eared viewer to catch some of the Infected speech.

Extras
Commentary – Danny Boyle and Alex Garland put on an engaging description of the film’s making. Garland is brutally honest on which scenes could be better and highlights the pitfalls of where to put exposition in a movie of this genre. He never pretends to be good at it, this is his first screenplay after all, and never tries to impress anyone with pretentious knowledge of the business “what do you call that, a pan or track?” Boyle is a great listen for any rising director, enthusiastically going into detail about the technology he used and never once seeming to miss 35mm. He points out all the visual influences from war photographers and is incredibly knowledgeable, not just in film, but also in art and music. But is it me, or does he sound exactly the same as Christopher Eccelston?

Deleted Scenes with Commentary – Some good quality bits left out for pacing and continuity. One reveals a train that was converted into a makeshift hospital while another is an uncompleted effects shot that would show devastation on the roads. The commentary takes you through them as you’d expect and Garland maintains his disgust for some of his dialogue when faced with a scene where the characters pretend to be taxi drivers. An alternate ending reveals an option where Jim does die in the hospital and only Selina and Megan make it to the country.

Animated Storyboard with Commentary – Another alternate ending this time in a simple black, white and red storyboard with stage directions read out by Garland and characters read with surprising zeal from Boyle. It features a wildly different story with Frank not being killed after becoming infected but instead tied up by the heroes and taken to a medical facility to search for a cure. The animation is made all the more thrilling by the use of the Godspeed instrumental and is a standout extra in it’s originality.

Galleries with Commentary – Boyle lends his voice to make these otherwise tedious extras more watchable. One set of pics looks at the production through the lens of a trained photographer some of which were used for promotional material while the other is an interesting collection of straight continuity shots of each character. These were used by the costume department to make sure a character’s dress matches if a scene had to be shot over a number of days.

Pure Rage: The Making Of 28 Days Later – Not sure whether it’s supposed to be a documentary about the movie itself or looking at world epidemics as a whole. Still, it’s better than the usual sound bite fest you usually get and at least tries to put the film in a real life context though never makes any conclusions on its impact.

Music Video - If you wanted the movie condensed into 5 minutes then here it is, good track though.

Overall
28 Days Later will not only go down as a great film by a great director but also as a successful early foray into DV filmmaking. The DVD gives Danny Boyle the chance to defend his reason for shooting this way and should serve as a case study for any would be lo-budget artist.

Rich Badley