28 Days Later

Alternate titles : Extermination.

Tagline : "The days are numbered".

A man wakes up in a London Hospital to find the place completely deserted. Having spent the last 28 days in a coma, following a road crash, he is completely oblivious to the events that have taken place whilst he was unconscious.

Wandering outside, he is alarmed to find the once busy city is now a desolate ghost town. No sign of life, no cars, and no power, nothing. However, as he is soon to find out, he is not completely alone...

It turns out the population has been decimated by an experimental biological warfare virus called "Rage". Those the virus hasn't killed, have been turned into homicidal zombies, who attack anything that moves, as he shortly discovers.

Rescued by a small group of survivors who are holed up in an abandoned tube station, they attempt to get out of the city and make their way up to Manchester where an Army unit are broadcasting messages to any would-be survivors. But getting out of London proves to be no easy task (hell, isn't that always the case?), and when they finally do manage to break out, they find their nightmare is far from over as Major West's army camp proves to be anything but the safe haven they were looking for.

Directed by Danny Boyle, the man who gave the world "Trainspotting", this is an excellent post-apocalyptic thriller that just goes to prove you don't need a big budget to make a good film. Whilst films of this nature aren't exactly new, one remembers "The Omega Man", "12 Monkeys" and the old UK TV show "Survivors" and zombie film fans may notice one or two similarities to some of their favourites, this is still an awsome jolt of pulse pounding horror.

Overall Marks : 6/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• The film was shot almost entirely using digital video cameras. The only part shot on 35mm film stock was the end scene in the cottage.
• The scenes of a deserted London were filmed during the early hours of the morning, when the area's where relatively free from people and traffic. In order to make sure nobody inadvertently wondered onto the set, they had the co-operation of the council and police to close off small areas of the city, but only for short periods of time. As they were using digital cameras, this allowed quick set up and shoot times.
• Christopher Ecclestone and the other actors playing the soldiers were sent on a 3 day training course with the army, in order to learn how to act like properly like soldiers.
• The deserted stretches of the M1 motorway were achieved by having the police close off one section, for just long enough to get a couple of minutes footage shot.
• The tower block where Jim and Selena hook up with Hannah and her father was actually a condemned building, which has since been demolished.
• An alternate ending, in which Jim undergoes a blood transfusion and sacrifices himself to save Hannah's father, was scripted but not filmed. As this proved unworkable with the rest of the storyline.
• The DVD and BD releases contain a roughcut of an alternate ending, in which the infected attack the house again and manage to break in, whilst Jim is rescuing the girls. There's also another alternate ending that can be found in the extras, in which Jim dies, which was ditched in order to give the film a more upbeat ending.

Other Recomendations

A-Z REVIEWS | REVIEWS INDEX | HOME