28 Days Later (2003) Danny Boyle

Said to be…
 “Visionary and Scary!” -Rolling Stone

 “Hailed as the most frightening film since The Exorcist, acclaimed director Danny Boyle’s groundbreaking take on zombie horror  ‘isn’t just scary… it’s absolutely terrifying!’ ” (Access Hollywood)

   I recall the vary first time I saw this film… to this day I still enjoy popping it into my DVD player, and perhaps when I upgrade into my Blu Ray player. That being said.. Does not mean that as always I have a few things to say about it as a zombie film, I would be letting not only y'all down but myself. In order to accurately review this film I did watch it freshly so that I was not going off my still very vivid memories of the content of this film… which leads to me to watching 28 Weeks Later, I have often wonder does that mean the next film could potentially be 28 Months Later followed by years?

 So I pulled out my worn copy, slipped it into my Xbox 360 -cause that is how I roll these days- poured me a glass of rum & coke. Then sat back to watch this film yet again… hopefully, undisturbed by the door, phone, etc… It’s always interesting re-watching a zombie film to review, because I sit here in a different mind set then I usually would.  My son playing on the floor getting a bit cranky because the do decided she would rather have his toy then hers begins to frustrate me as I try to watch this film a bit more closely… looking to the clock I am happy to see that it is nearly 8:30 pm which means I can put him to bed. Though now I have to pause the movie, possibly back track slightly hoping now that he is in bed, my spoiled dog will behave.

 Monkeys… I have to say that watching the first part of this film reminds me of the nightmares I had as a kid after seeing a scene from Outbreak, when a monkey who was to be blamed for the rampant spread of disease when it attacked a woman by scratching open her arm.

 So rage zombies… more realistic than you would think with the unknown bio-genetic viruses that are being explored. Though I will once again refrain from spewing my view points on this very explosive topic, at least they aren’t shamblers.

 My first issue with this film is that if you are bed ridden long enough to wake up suddenly finding the hospital equipment to be off… you would not be able to easily get out of bed and just walk about. Once more I will save my ranting on this matter as it is often looked over by Hollywood to those who attend my Zombie Survival Panels.  Now children, how many times must I tell you? Flaming Zombies are bad!! You can not give me any justification on why it is a good idea to set them ablaze…. Unless you want to burn down the city, town or wherever you are.

 There are many good points to this film as goes with some… if you’re an avid zombie survivalist who insists on making a plan, there are some very good what not to do tid bits in this film, especially when dealing rage zombies.  I wonder how much money Pepsi got for advertisement in this film… random I know but it keeps popping up. I feel like I should take a shot every time some one pulls out or mentions Pepsi.

 The latter half of this film is more dedicated to some twisted idealism of survival… 'heh heh we’ve got us some woman, they sure do have perty mouths.' Not to say that it isn’t realistic, kind of gives you the other side of the coin view point of what it takes to survive.  I have to say though the characters whom you follow closely through out the film Selena, Hannah & Jim are good well rounded characters unlike some you are presented with in these sort of films. Fuzzy feel good ending as the intrepid duo hole up in a farm house, a scene of starving zombies scattered along a quaint road…

Now what have we learned from this film? The cause of a zombpocalypse is because the hippies couldn’t leave the monkeys in the cage… also, never trust the transmissions you hear unless you want to be the tool of someone’s psychotic need to rebuild civilization. You know, in Soviet Russia they love propaganda like this.