28 Weeks Later

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 21, 2007

Sitting through 28 Weeks Later I had an odd sense of d©j  vu. But it was not because this movie was a sequel of 28 Days Later, which came out in 2003. I was thinking instead of a movie I had seen a few weeks ago. It finally hit me: 28 Weeks Later is what Planet Terror would have been if they had played it straight.

It’s the exact same plot, when you think of it. Planet Terror had disease-carrying zombies in it. So did 28 Weeks Later. “Weeks” had a starring role for the military. Ditto for Planet Terror. You had the usual scenes where zombies infect people in both movies. And there were the fight scenes where all the zombies were being shot up. The only thing missing was that woman with no leg.

But watching 28 Weeks Later was a much different, far more sober experience than it was to sit through the wild Grindhouse double-feature. Everyone knows Planet Terror was campy and done for laughs. Here, director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and executive producer Danny Boyle (who directed the original 28 Days Later) were in no mood to give the audience a fun time at the movies. They wanted their audience to be disturbed and frightened.

28 Weeks Later was disturbing and frightening.

This movie grips you by the throat from the get-go with scenes of a man, Don (played by Robert Carlyle), who runs as his family and his wife (Catherine McCormack) are left for dead at the hands of zombified victims of the “rage virus.” Somehow, he manages to escape with his life from the rage people, and we pick up the story 28 weeks later when he reunites with his two kids in ravaged London. The United States Army is on hand to oversee the reconstruction and keep control. Ultimately, Don has to break the news to his kids (played by Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton) that he abandoned their mother to die at the hands of the zombies. From that point on, things start to happen as the kids escape for home and find their mother still alive, having miraculously survived the attacks of the infected zombies.

It turns out that she is somehow immune to this rage disease. Unfortunately, her husband is most definitely not immune, and he later finds his wife— and ends up infecting himself. From that point on, all heck breaks loose.

Very quickly the U.S. military loses control of the situation as the rage virus comes back.The military comes off in this movie looking like a group of people who cannot do anything right (shades of Iraq). They are shown overreacting to the situation as they respond to the return of the rage virus by killing people at random. The story then focuses on the kids as they try and escape (1) a US military bent on killing everyone in sight, and (2) the zombies trying to attack them. A big question for the audience is whether these kids will ultimately turn into zombies themselves— or whether they carry a gene that gives them immunity to the virus. In short, these kids may hold the key to a cure to the whole rage virus. Or they may not.

This movie keeps up a very energetic pace through the first part of the movie. It almost gets to be too much after a while; you get to the point where you get weary and ask yourself “have these people finally escaped these zombies yet?!” Perhaps it’s inevitable that this movie loses its energy after setting such a fast pace to begin with. Still, it’s a gripping story. I actually cared about the characters, including some of these zombies, believe it or not. You really do want to know what happens to these two kids and want to find out how they are able to escape.

To be certain, this movie has plenty of gore, blood and violence. The zombies are unpleasant-looking and definitely not the type of folks you want to meet on the street. Plus, you have the added element of a US military going hog wild and killing people in downtown London. This is one of those film rarities: a shoot-’em-up horror movie. Not only do you have these zombies drawing blood from people, but you have plenty of action sequences where victims are being gunned down and set on fire by armed forces personnel. This is not a movie for weak stomachs.

28 Weeks Later is not the most original motion picture you will see but it certainly delivers as a true-to-form scary zombie movie. It’s got some frightening and well-shot scenes, plenty of action, and characters that you care about. Just make sure you’re in the mood to be freaked out by zombies. As we ought to know by now, not all movie zombies are alike.

Also, don’t be surprised if we see these zombies all come back for another sequel. Perhaps in 28 months?

Read more articles by John Cairns