'28 Days Later': Hell is other people (as zombies)

I guess I kind of forgot '28 Days Later' (trailer). Having watched the sequel a little while ago, I figured I would rewatch the original and review each of them. I sure didn't remember how much the two differed and I really was accurate when I thought the second was more bloody. Although its sequel follows the zombie/horror conventions more, it is important to recall that the first movie "reinvented" the zombie movie by proving one point: it doesn't actually have to be about the zombies.

The movie, directed by Danny Boyle, follows Jim, who wakes up in the hospital from a coma to discover that London has been abandoned as a result of the "rage" virus, which turns people into zombie-like creatures. Along the way he meets a young woman, Selena, and then a father and his daughter. The four of them set off in search of survival and although the zombies are the danger lurking around every corner, the search for survival and meaning in an empty world presents the existential drama as more harrowing and significant to the characters -- although perhaps I can say that because I am more detached from the first time I saw it and was pretty spooked by Boyle's filming of the zombies, or infected as they call it. Aside from creating a different method of horror, there are a couple of other remarkable innovations. It was (for me at least) an introduction to Cillian Murphy, who as I wrote before, has turned in a number of solid performances and shows a lot of promise as an actor. I found myself chuckling, though, because it seems they told him to speak a bitter deeper than his natural timbre. Naomie Harris was also good, but I kept thinking of her as the creepy woman in 'Pirates'. What really stands out in the movie, though, are the fantastic shots of an empty London. It really sets the tone for the more serious analysis of it's themes and the innovative use of digital video creates a documentarianesque authenticity. The filming is grainy and jarring at time, but without feeling gimmicky. It's a shame how much that method has been copied in crappy horror movies as a cheap thrill and not to further any sort of storytelling.

In all I had forgotten how good of a film Boyle made. It's of the type that is more than just good filmmaking, but actually movies the medium forward. It tells a story in a different way and challenges the audience instead of merely entertaining. Best of all, it proves that genres are not set in stone, and one of the best ways of making a movie that isn't boring is by merging genres (like 'Shaun of the Dead' did) and tell a story no one has seen before.

Grade: A