This British and relatively low-budget zombie film was a hUUUUUUge success when it came back in 2002 and is today, 23 Years Later, regarded as one of the big, fat zombie classics that more or less reinvented the whole zombie sub-genre after a decade of almost overdosing on Zoloft. Strong British tea seemed to do the trick. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland were actually surprised over the giant success of the film, especially how it blew up in the US. They were just making a small zombie film, after all, with (at the time) no-name actors. A classic case of lightning in a bottle, I guess. It gave the genre the same resurgence as Scream did for slashers in the 90’s and opened the doors for George Romero to finally make his first zombie film under a Hollywood studio with Land of the Dead. And, of course, we have another British classic, that is Shaun of the Dead, and tons of other shitty zombie films that got sharted out at full speed in step with the shark films during the early 2000s (and still going strong). We Norwegians finally got our first zombie fest with Dead Snow plus an even better sequel, and I’m still hoping for a third one.
Then came the mega-hit TV show The Walking Dead and the whole planet was in full-blown zombie mania. It was a fun ride as long as it lasted, until the show fell completely on its arse, and we were forced to forgive Negan. B o l l o c k s. I digress.
A group of activists break into a lab to save some monkeys used in experiments. And these monkeys are not to be messed with as they’ve been injected with this so-called rage virus. As soon as they release the monkeys, they get attacked, bitten and turned into zombies within seconds. Sorry, I meant “infested“, as this virus turns them into red-eyed flesh-eaters with a non-stop rage psychosis that also gives them the skill-upgrade to run like Tom Cruise. What a great combination. And no, this rage virus wasn’t coughed out from some shady lab in China, but at Cambridge University. Yes, in Cambridge, England, of all places. God save the Queen. Then we skip to some days later, 28, to be precise, where sheriff Mick Graves wakes up in a hospital… uhm, sorry, wrong universe. The first issue of the comic book series The Walking Dead was released one year after the release of this film, by the way. A young lad named Jim (played by an unknown Cillian Murphy) wakes up in a hospital bed after being in a coma, to quickly discover that he’s the only one in the building. It’s eerie, quiet and a bit spooky. What the hell happened. Is he the Last Man on Earth? Huh…
From here on, we follow the footsteps of a confused, hazy and disoriented Jim as he walks into a deserted London, like an open-world game where all the NPCs have been glitched away. Then we have the classic scene which the film is most known for where he walks through an empty and trash-filled London Bridge with Big Ben in the background with not a single soul to spot. This scene was shot very early in the morning, a hangover Sunday morning I’d guess, where they had to shoot in a big hurry before a car would enter the frame. Jim enters a church filled with bodies where he has his first encounter with “the infected“, among them a creepy priest. Athletes were used as the running zombies. Makes sense, but I find it a bit funny at the same time, since Britain has its fair share of obesity. Although jabbas have their physical limitations, they sure can be angry too. Anyway – he manages to get away, and pays his mum and dad a visit, which he finds in their bed, rotting away after committing suicide during the outbreak. A horrific sight where you actually can smell it. This scene made me think of the poor guy in Dying Light who shot himself in front of a photo of his cat. Jim eventually meets some other survivors, the young chick Selena (Naomie Harris), Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and her younger daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). With Frank’s car, they join forces, looting a grocery store before escaping London and driving to Manchester. And instead of a nice sunrise on the horizon, they only see a city in flames. More shit and bumps in the road (to say it mildly) happens, but then they meet the military. Thank goodness! Finally safe. Oh, well…
So the big question is: does the film still hold up? Has it survived (no pun intended) the test of time and all that? I recently rewatched this, and the sequel, 28 Weeks Later, for the first time in two decades, and I’d say yeah. That is much thanks to the grounded story and the rock-solid acting by everyone involved. 28 Days Later focuses way more on the fight-or-flight mode and getting the hell out of the big city and hoping for the best, rather than action and gore and collecting skill points. There are gory moments here, but that aspect is not the main focus. The first two acts of the film is more of an escape journey where we get more of a sense of the apocalyptic surroundings and the overall grimy atmosphere of sheer hopelessness as they stumble from A to B… and eventually to C. They have a terrifying moment in a tunnel where they have to change a tire while we hear the infected screaming in the distance as they come closer and closer. Then we see their running shadows, and it’s time to change that damn tire! A simple but very effective scene. It all builds up to a more intense and action-packed third act where we see some clear parallels to George Romero’s films, and, of course, to mention The Walking Dead for the third time, where humans are as much a threat as the zombies/infected, and how we flush all forms of basic moral sense in the toilet as the society collapses.
Without spoiling, Cillian Murphy gradually reaches the breaking point and goes in full shirtless Rambo mode, Ramboheimer, if you will. The deeper meaning behind his mental development is obvious where the last thirty minutes or so could as well be something from a war film. Makes more sense now in the wake of Alex Garland’s last two films, Civil War (2024) and this year’s Warfare. The subject of war is clearly his thing. Garland and Boyle were clearly on the same page here as they took a lot of ideas from real events to put in the script to not just make it as another zombie film. The Rwanda and Sierra Leone war were some of the inspirations for the piling bodies in the church. The rage virus was inspired by the scares of anthrax (not the band), bio-terrorism and the spread of mad cow disease in the 1980’s. So yeah, 28 Days Later has aged pretty well – because humans will always be humans, for the better, but mostly for the much, much worse. The soundtrack is also outstanding, where the tunes of In the House, in a Heartbeat by John Murphy capture the eerie emptiness, the sadness and the overall bleak atmosphere perfectly.
The one and only gripe I have here, is that damn low-resolution image quality. And I’m not the only one. The answer is short and simple: 28 Days Later is one of the very first films that was shot digitally, with a Canon XL1, which doesn’t allow it to be remastered to 4K. That’s why the film has the overall image quality like an old YouTube video from 2007, and also why the Blu-ray looks the same as the DVD. Director Danny Boyle wanted to give the film a more gritty and authentic look, aside from being shot like a documentary. Sometimes it works, but for the most part it just looks outdated. Bummer, but it is what it is, so… Still a solid film though.
The film is reviewed from the Norwegian streaming site Viaplay, after our 20 plus years old DVD crashed.
Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Country & year: UK, 2002
Actors: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, Luke Mably, Stuart McQuarrie, Ricci Harnett, Leo Bill, Junior Laniyan, Ray Panthaki, Christopher Eccleston, Toby Sedgwick
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/
You know the legends… Now learn the truth.
