Danny Boyle rethinks the zombie subgenre, modernizing several of its sillier conventions to create a more pressing, lethal threat. 28 Days Later doesn't discard the pertinent bits - movies about the undead have long depicted desperate survivors as an equal or greater danger - but instead sharpens the axe, so to speak, by cutting out all the shuffling and moaning about brains. These monsters are aggressive, athletic and sharp-witted, an overpowering physical peril that should be evaded, not confronted.
That's not the only thing that feels different. One of the first major films to go all-digital, it still comes across as unusually intimate and street-level, especially in comparison to its more refined, traditional big-budget contemporaries. We've seen empty cities and abandoned highways before, but never with such a pervasive sense of stark, haunting reality. Early scenes of an abandoned, wind-swept downtown London, littered with trash and eerily silent, are a major highlight; a chillingly effective method to set the stage without an overwrought narrative explanation.
This is a film that excels at such tension - its constant sense of imminence is delicious - even after the enemy changes faces in the third act. A few awkward pieces hold it back from achieving loftier heights (I really didn't need the hammy exposition of the prologue, nor the tacked on feel-good ending), but it's still a daringly effective, and necessary, step forward for the whole category.
Review by drqshadowBlockedParent2020-06-10T15:07:49Z
Danny Boyle rethinks the zombie subgenre, modernizing several of its sillier conventions to create a more pressing, lethal threat. 28 Days Later doesn't discard the pertinent bits - movies about the undead have long depicted desperate survivors as an equal or greater danger - but instead sharpens the axe, so to speak, by cutting out all the shuffling and moaning about brains. These monsters are aggressive, athletic and sharp-witted, an overpowering physical peril that should be evaded, not confronted.
That's not the only thing that feels different. One of the first major films to go all-digital, it still comes across as unusually intimate and street-level, especially in comparison to its more refined, traditional big-budget contemporaries. We've seen empty cities and abandoned highways before, but never with such a pervasive sense of stark, haunting reality. Early scenes of an abandoned, wind-swept downtown London, littered with trash and eerily silent, are a major highlight; a chillingly effective method to set the stage without an overwrought narrative explanation.
This is a film that excels at such tension - its constant sense of imminence is delicious - even after the enemy changes faces in the third act. A few awkward pieces hold it back from achieving loftier heights (I really didn't need the hammy exposition of the prologue, nor the tacked on feel-good ending), but it's still a daringly effective, and necessary, step forward for the whole category.