SPOILERS
As for Frank’s demise, that didn’t bother me greatly. For one thing, he was absolutely devoted to his daughter ( his agonised “I love you very much” was for me the most heart-breaking part of the film);for another, he was clearly a hard bastard ( I mean, did you see him in Gangs of New York
?) For those reasons it was absolutely necessary that he be removed before the final third of the film.
I finally had the chance to see 28 Days Later this weekend and I LOVED it.
I don’t have anything much to add that hasn’t already been said, but I did want to mention that beautiful scene
where the horses are galloping through the field next to their campsite. What a great and wholly unexpected scene that was!
I also loved the shopping scene–especially Frank’s comment about “irradiated apples” and him leaving his credit card behind at the cash register.
The biggest unanswered question for me was
Who left Jim the key to get out of the hosptial room and how had he managed to survive for so long without be attacked by zombies while he was in that coma? Who was protecting him all that time? Surely the zombies had attacked that hospital long before the day he woke up.
I assume Jim was left the key by a completely random hospital worker, possibly the doctor or nurse that was monitoring him. I love that idea, by the way. The completely selfless act of giving Jim a chance at life is intereseting juxtaposed against the zombies and horrible soldiers that populate the rest of the film.
As for the hospital, it may very well not have been attacked. It could simply have been empty because of the evacuation. A hasty evacuation would account for the state of disarray it appears to be in when Jim leaves, and it may have even been raided for suplies by people like Selena and Mark. The zombies don’t appear to go looking somewhere for people unless they see or hear evidence of them.
I saw it tonight, and liked it a lot. More for the cinematography than anything else, I think. Usually when you see people trying to make an “artistic” horror movie, it’s either just arbitrarily gothic or ultra modern or just plain dumb (e.g. Thirteen Ghosts).
This one had so many shots that were memorable both for being beautiful and for heightening the whole creepy mood of it. The graffiti in the church, and the horses running outside the ruins of another church, were already mentioned. Another is when they hear about how water’s so hard to find, and then they reach the top of the building to see all those buckets like an act of total desperation.
The best, for me, were when Hannah was wearing that dress and running through the hallways of the mansion – you could barely see her, just fading away into the dark like a ghost. Seeing something as “traditional gothic horror” as that, shot on video at the end of a movie full of contemporary images, was just stunning.
I wish I’d seen it on video instead of at a theater, though, and saved my money for Terminator 3 or some big-screen spectacle. The showing I went to was full of teenagers looking for a regular old zombie movie, so there was lots of talking, and asking each other for translations, and looking at/answering cell phones, etc. And I couldn’t believe the reaction whenever they showed the lead’s dick or his ass. Embarrassed laughter, or “gross!” or nervous coughing and shouts of “Aw, man!” It was so annoying I was about to walk out and see something else; or just turn around and say, “Kids, it’s a penis. Half of you have got one. It’s not that big a deal.”
He only glanced at a newspaper. On the other hand, he spent a good amount time listening to Max give a first-hand account of what it was like trying to get on an airplane during the evacuation. The movie showed just how difficult it is to “avoid” the infected, and if you accept the premise that it takes over so quickly, that just compounds the problem.
As has been pointed out, he was acting irrationally. His one last hope had just been destroyed, his idea that there was still “civilization” instead of just “survival” (the dominant theme of the movie). He clung to the last manifestation of that civilization, which is to respect the bodies of the dead.
I don’t get the point here. That scene did more to establish that the C.O. was just a vindictive bastard who wanted to feel as if he had true control over the situation. The movie never meant to suggest that it was a legitimate “experiment.”
No. I was going to be all pompous and smart-assy about this, but then I realized that the only reason I know about England’s strict anti-gun laws is from reading the comic book Hellblazer.
And again, you’re trying to assign rational motives to irrational characters. Even if you ignore the fact that this was the whole theme of the movie – how quickly civilized people can turn into monsters, with or without a disease – it still makes sense when you look at the characters.
The officer was trying to present an image of himself as being logical, but it was a desperate attempt to keep control over a situation he had no way of winning. It was clear that his offer to the men was the only thing he could do to keep them from turning on each other and on him. He didn’t care about rebuilding society; he’d already adopted Selena’s attitude from the beginning of the movie, where there’s nothing left to do except just survive. He said he’d seen years of “people killing other people,” so he already knew first-hand how quickly people can abandon their civilization and their humanity.
That reminds me; I’ve never been a big fan of zombie movies or post-apocalyptic movies or stories, and this movie shows why. It’s near-impossible for them to have a satisfying ending. (I know the spoilers have been revoked, but it just feels wrong to write this without a spoiler box:)
In most zombie movies, you just get the “THE END?” type ending, or everybody gets killed, which is a drag because there’s no resolution. Now, I’m assuming that there wasn’t a bit after the credits in 28 days later…, because I really had to go to the bathroom and left as soon as the credits started. So assuming the ending is the one where the jet flies over and sees their “Hello” sign, then that’s unsatisfying too. It’s as happy an ending as they can get out of that movie, but it just feels like a cop-out. I thought that their lost puppy was going to turn up at any moment.
I just don’t believe that someone like Selena who was so hardened just a couple of days ago, would see a blood-covered man jump through a window and gouge another man’s eyes out with his bare hands, and then not kill him. That’s how it should’ve ended, to drive home the “it’s not just the virus” theme of the whole thing.
Saw it this weekend too, what a fantastic movie. I had high hopes going into it as I have been jonesing for a zombie flick and I must say this far surpassed my expectations but for entirely different reasons.
As others have pointed out, this was far from the standard ‘zombie’ movie and the true monsters, in many ways, were not the infected but the survivors.
Like SolGrundy I also found it odd that people in the theater reacted so loudly to the naked Jim scenes. It just seemed… juvenile.
I was also a little disappointed in the crowd reaction to the movie. It seemed a lot of people just didn’t get it. I heard a lot of “Well that sucked”, “I want those two hours back”, and best of all “Christ, just like that damn Blair Witch Project!” comments. Further evidence of the dumbing down of America by the typical hollywood horror flicks? Considering that the same theater of people cheered over the Jason vs. Freddy trailer. shrug
Oh, and the horse scene was beautiful. I also have a striking image in my mind of when Jim was laying in the woods looking up and the scene shows his view and the airplane contrails visible through the trees. That just drove the Sergeants point home even further that the rest of the world was “sitting on their asses watching The Simpsons” while they were quaranteined.
MeanJoe
Now I’m glad I didn’t have anyone shvitzing over the naked scenes; all we had was a guy confused about the very beginning: “Did it start yet?”
I certainly wasn’t scared, but a lot of the images are going to stick with me for a while (the buckets on the roof, the horses, the (I think) sheep swarming in the field during Jim’s Valium dreaming, the church and all those bodies piled up in the pews.
A friend of mine criticized a lack of character development in the film, and I disagreed. I felt Jim developed at first in a poignant way (going back to his parents’ house and finding the note), and then in the creepy Apocalypse Now way someone already mentioned above. I also liked that Boyle began to shoot Jim as one of the infected when he started his assault on the manor house. We saw him flickering at the edge of the frame, peering in through the windows, running across the walls. Selena developed as well, moving from not caring about anyone else to becoming Hannah’s protector.
I have three points to make about this movie:
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28 Days Later is very much in the tradition of British post-apocalyptic literature. I’m thinking of Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids, but even more so Christopher’s grim No Blade of Grass (a/k/a The Death of Grass).
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This movie could have used some female frontal nudity.
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The ending was a nice setup for a potential sequel, should the producers be so inclined. (After all, we really don’t know anything about that Finnish pilot, do we? Maybe Finland needs women!)
My first reaction when I saw the bodies in the woods was “that’s what’s happened to all of the men.” IIRC, when Jim and company get to the army blockade, there are some civilian cars there. Since the dad said that the broadcast had been going on for a couple weeks, it does leave time for other survivors to meet their demise at the hands of the army guys.
During the quick-cut montage after the second appearance of “28 days later” I thought I saw the word “HELL.” That was the incomplete HELLO sign, right?
I’m rather science-minded, so one thing that really got on my nerves was the seeming inconsistency of the communicability of the virus. When the infected attacked at Jim’s house, and when Selena killed Mark there was blood splattering all over the place. And the characters had their mouths open for at least some of the time. Jim had open wounds. And they weren’t infected. Or when the land mines blew up one of the infected, and blood and body parts rained down on a couple soldiers and they were screaming and cheering and weren’t infected. Or when the major and Jim are looking at the captured infected, who’s vomiting blood all over the place, and they were sitting just a short distance away, with little concern (especially on the major’s part). Also, do all of the infected die after 56 days? Since some of the army guys were infected more recently than others, it seems like you’d have to wait even longer for them to die.
Can the Chunnel be closed off from one end? Because other than the drifting boat/stowaway on a plane, that seems to be the only way the infected could leave Britain.
I really wish the movie would have ended with Jim out in the woods, looking up at a plane going by. Then you’d be left with the image of the rest of the world leaving Britan alone, and the new “civilization” in Britain consisting of a bunch of gang-raping soldiers. Though I did feel a bit sympathetic towards the major. I think he did what he did (the promise of women) to save himself and the future. He just went about it in a really shitty way.
Oh, and I was jumpy throughout this movie (well, mostly in the first 2/3) because every time there was a quiet scene (the supermarket, in the ruins, etc) I was expecting them to have to do battle with some more infected.
The supermarket scene brought back recollections of Dawn of the Dead’s “shopping spree” after the Monroeville Mall was cleared of zombies. Slight tribute perhaps? Anyway, I rather enjoyed that scene for that reason alone. 
easy e - I agree with the blood splatter, I expected the soliders to be infected the infected attacker gets blown up by the land-mines.
Also…
I had the same thought, that other “survivors” showed up sans women and were summarily executed.
MeanJoe
I thought it was great, but I think they missed an opportunity with the father. He would have picked up on the soldiers’ intent before the others. It would have been interesting to see his optimism suddenly dashed while being afraid to tell his daughter what he had realized.
I appreciated that the director did not feel the need to fill every second with soundtrack. Creating atmoshpere through silence is a bit of a lost art in the U.S.
I saw “HELL” too in that split-second montage after the car crash. I took it to mean that the three of them went through hell in the 28 days or so after they escaped and that their hell was coming to an end when they finished the “hello” and were spotted by the plane…or something like that… Pretty neat touch, I thought.
I also liked the idea of so many unfinished and untold stories throughout the movie. I would have loved to see exactly what happened to each of the characters before they met up with each other–there’s a wealth of backstory there, probably enough for another 2 or 3 movies.
One thing with the father. SPOILERI remember watching when he got shot thinking “Man, if only they showed up two minutes earlier, he never would have gotten infected, and they wouldn’t have had to do that.” It wasn’t until the whole “I promised them women” bit that I realized that they waited, looking for a reason to kill either of the men, if not both of them. The soldiers were there all the time, they just chose to come out when their competition was thinned. That’s a creepy thought.
I loved this picture!
One thing that has prevented the zombie flick from effectively raising its decaying head in the past decade or so is the genre’s tendency to pace itself much slower than modern action or horror films. Danny Boyle cleverly came up with the perfect solution: time compression.
Time compression is in fact one of the basic premises of the film, providing the temporal leap four weeks into the future after the introduction and also allowing for its quick and satisfying denouement. Time compression is also used for the blindingly quick onset of the disease. I particularly liked how this gimmick was also used to provide the unspoken explanation for the film’s “happy” ending–the epidemic is contained in the British Isles because when it takes only 20 seconds to go ape-shit, there’s no way for the zombies to reliably get offshore.
The trick isn’t new; see City of the Walking Dead and Return of the Living Dead for this film’s soul-mates. It speeds up the action and allows for the frenetic MTV-style photography which everyone loves so much these days.
And still, the film most definitely is still a zombie film, still true to its “family values” of isolation, alienation, trust, and survival, as well as paying homage to its predecessors. What a pleasure it is to see the zombies return in such a fresh new way.
I haven’t read most of this thread, because I intend to see the movie. But can someone confirm for me that the music I heard at the beginning of the trailer was Godspeed You Black Emperor! ? That would certainly fit in with the “slow crescendo” mentioned.
Yes it is. According to Empire magazine it is, hwoever, not on the film’s soundtrack CD. This may have somethign to do with the full track being around 16 minutes along (maybe even more).
Dude, that sucks! I was really thinking of getting the soundtrack because of that song, but now I’m not so sure. What album is it on, so I can get a copy of it?
According to IMDB the track is “East Hastings” (it has been a while since I have watched the film, so I cannot confirm this, but I am pretty sure that this is correct), which can be found at amazon.com.
Just checking, the Soundtrack is also at amazon.com and it doesn’t include “East Hastings”.
I believe that East Hastings is on F#A#oo (f-sharp, a-sharp, infinity). Let me check…
Yep.
Wow, what a scary movie. Its been two day later and I still get nightmares and get paranoid.
I too would like to see a prequel to this, get some insight as to how each of the characters get to where they are now. The airport scene as describe by one of the characters would be something interesting to see. I was actually picturing in my head how it was like and would like to see how he got away from it.