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28 Days Later
***1/2
Cinema Releases - November 1, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 18. UK.
113 minutes. Directed by Danny Boyle. Written by Alex Garland. Starring Cillian
Murphy, Naomie Harris, Megan Burns, Brendan Gleeson, Christopher Eccleston,
Noah Huntley.
"28 Days Later" is one heck of a
zombie-fest. It is ugly, uncomfortable, gory, loud and sick. In other words,
it works. It's one of those movies where you wince, gag, occasionally jolt
and do a lot of staring at the screen with your mouth open because you can't
believe what you just saw. I have seen enough pretty teenagers crack bad
jokes before being chased around by Michael Myers wannabes, so I appreciate
when horror makes a decent attempt at actually being horrific.
The film opens in an animal-testing lab. Activists
are attempting to rescue a bunch of monkeys that have been kept in cages,
experimented on and force-fed images of war and rioting. A scientist warns
that his creatures have been infected with a killer virus called Rage. His
caution is ignored. Cue a violent monkey escape and a lot of puking up
blood.
Cut to a London hospital, twenty-eight days later.
A young guy played by Cillian Murphy wakes up in his bed after recovering
from a car accident. He finds nothing in the corridors except for mess. He
wanders around Piccadilly Circus, seeing cars, cash and belongings left
abandoned. There is no electricity. The papers strewn around the empty newsstands
scream of 'Evacuation!', and include sub-headers about epidemic, mass chaos
and government struggling to act.
The structure of this opening allows "28 Days
Later" to signal that it is going to be a gore flick while quietly introducing
us to the devastation of its situations. We get information at the same time
as Murphy, as he wanders disorientated, taking in bits and pieces, not knowing
quite how to react. I have seen apocalyptic visions that are less obvious
and more heartbreaking -- Mick Jackson's "Threads" comes instantly to mind
-- but this movie's sombre, eerie shots of a London left empty during daylight
do have a certain dogged and desperate visceral impact.
Murphy discovers another survivor, a woman in
her twenties played by Naomie Murphy who has fashioned herself into a hardened
lone warrior. She explains about the infected people who lurk in corners,
waiting to discover and devour human flesh, and tells of how a person will
have up to twenty seconds after being exposed to their blood before becoming
one of them. "If they get you, I won't hesitate for a moment," she says,
with an understandable lack of humour.
Two more survivors join the group, a gentle
middle-aged homeowner (Brendan Gleeson) and his pre-teen daughter (Megan
Burns). The four manage to get a wireless broadcast from an army base near
Manchester, promising the answer to infection and a safe haven from attackers,
and so they get in a car and go. There are more quiet scenes at this point;
simple, human and touching moments that include an excited trip to an abandoned
supermarket and peaceful drives down empty motorways. And then the movie
has more surprises in store, when our friends reach the army base, discover
how desperation has driven the men running it, and have to find ways of dealing
with that while still trying to fight off members of the
undead.
"28 Days Later" was a fully funded production,
directed by hit British director Danny Boyle, and yet it has been shot on
cheap videotape, giving it a fuzzy, blurred look that creates the right feeling
of repulsive, obnoxious seediness. We're feeling weird before the zombies
show up, and when they do, they don't come on at regular intervals or jaggedly
march at the heroes in large queues -- their appearances are random, brief
and savage. Yes, they drool and snarl, flail around and have red eyes, but
they are seen in such dizzying, jarring bursts that they never have the
opportunity to look ridiculous. Few movies of this type are so effective;
the makers of "Resident Evil" should take note before embarking on their
sequel.
Many of the people reading this review will recall
that I have not been a fan of Danny Boyle, and indeed once described him
as "one of the most hyperactive boors in modern cinema, the film director
equivalent of someone who'd take your arthritic father to a rave, forcibly
make him dance to the horrible music and claim to be promoting social integration
between the generations". I found "Trainspotting" to be a shallow pop video,
thought "A Life Less Ordinary" was an unholy mess and agreed with everyone
under the sun that "The Beach" didn't have a clue at any
level.
The thing about horror movies, and perhaps the
key to why "Shallow Grave" and "28 Days Later" are Boyle's best pictures
so far, is that a careful balance of excessiveness and calmness is required.
Boyle is unable to go overboard with stylistic flourishes for the entire
running time, because he knows we'll just get used to them and start to become
fed up. He has to wind us up slowly before going over the top, and so this
time, when he unleashes his stuff, it has an effect.
Incidentally, a reader named Alan Maughan writes
me to note that the period of 28 days is becoming rather significant in movies
about the apocalypse, what with the title of this release and the warning
of the giant bunny rabbit in last week's "Donnie Darko". I think it must
be something to do with Sandra Bullock's disastrous alcoholic drama "28 Days".
Watching that film sure made me think the world was ending.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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