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The Appropriate Tune - "A.M. 180", by Grandaddy
Now that we’ve reset a bit, let’s move on to some new horror. New to me at least. I’ve been aware of the 28 Days franchise of course, lasting as it has for a couple decades now and still putting out films, but I just never bothered to check it out. Maybe because I had heard that it was a zombie movie, and zombie fatigue was all the rage in the 00’s. I dunno, let’s give it a try.
In 28 Days Later, Cillian Murphy stars as Jim, a man who awakens from a coma in an empty hospital in a seemingly abandoned London. Civilization as we know it has collapsed; The outbreak of a virus which turns people into ravenous, animalistic lunatics has completely destroyed the fabric of society in less than a month, the few survivors forced to band together and eat stale snack food in order to survive. Just the kind of situation that makes you want to go back into a coma, but the world isn’t going to give Jim time to acclimate to the new world order. As the Bard once said, ‘You either get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.
It was the new millennium in 2002, give or take a couple years, and that meant we needed a new modern take on zombie movies. No more zombies born through voodoo magic or space radiation, this is a strictly man-made, animal tested virus situation, even if a ‘rage virus’ that completely infects a person in 10 seconds still comes across as magic or science fiction. No more shambling, undead corpses, these are quick little bastards who love crashing through windows. No patient cinematography, we’re doing Dutch angles and throwing in some shaky cam. Very much a ‘this ain’t your grandad’s zombie movie’ vibe, although in the year 2026 this might be your grandad’s zombie movie now.
I won’t say that it doesn’t work to some degree. 28 Days Later tackles much of the things that Romero did in his famous Dead series: the horrors of isolation and desperation, order versus chaos, misogyny, our relationship to authority, and so on and on. However there’s a bit of a build to mania here that you don’t quite find in those earlier films. Romero’s horror is a slow burn, characters being placed together in the metaphorical pressure cooker until they break down because the horde is outside and there’s nowhere to go. In 28 Days Later humans are actively being hunted, chased down by things that can’t dismiss as ‘other’ as easily as you can a rotting corpse. Humans haven’t been prey to something in quite a while, and the ridiculous ease at which the infection spreads pushes this mad energy onto things. As if the world is undergoing a collective manic episode.
If there is a point where Romero was right and Boyle is wrong, I think it’s that it doesn’t matter how the zombies got here. Aside from the fact that a ‘rage virus’ is silly, the whole thing with the animal rights folks breaking into an animal research lab, rescuing the chimpanzees watching TV just isn’t needed. In Night of the Living Dead Romero had an offhand line about space radiation and that was it, no elaboration needed because the film wasn’t about the zombies, it was about the people dealing with zombies. Cut the animal lab part and just have the film open with Jim waking up in the hospital and walking around the empty London, with a couple passing mentions of a virus. It’s already the most iconic bit of the movie, to just drop the audience into things blindly like Jim makes and aids that atmosphere of panic and disorientation.
Overall though, it’s a good’un. I don’t know if it really ended in a way for sequels, but I can see why it was successful enough that the sequel box was opened. Another franchise to throw onto the review pile I suppose. Maybe 28 years from now. Although I still haven’t watched The Wire, so better not put a timeline on these things.
STATUS: RECOMMENDED
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