MOVIE CHAT : 28-Days Later

[Tard]

Where should I start?

Although the "Z"-word is never spoken once in the movie, it's quite obviously an end-of-the-world apocalyptic zombie-flick! What sets this apart is the manner in which the zombies (in this case, called the "infected") behave & transmit the plague.

As mentioned before (in a review of "Hell Of The Living Dead"), zombies are customarily blue-collar monsters, slow & shambling & needing to attack en-masse to be considered as a real threat (see any number of old "Frankenstein" or "Mummy" movies, or the ending of Tom Savini's 1990 remake of NOTLD for more clarification (the only survivor in that movie was the one who casually strolled thru them)). They lack the sly romantic mystery of the Vampire, the animal ferocity of Werewolves, the intelligence of "Mad-Scientists taken-over by their experiments", or the cunning of "demonic possession".

The screenplay really had a time reworking the entire zombie-myth here! Rather than in early zombie-films, where there's a Voodoo priest who raises the dead for his own nefarious purposes, to the Romero trilogy which gave absolutely NO explanation/reason for their resurrection, 28-Days Later gives a clear reason why the infected have arrived.

It's a viral biological weapon being researched quietly in a hidden lab, until some treehugging PETA dipshits decide to break-in & free the captive monkeys.

(more soon)

<font color="#339900" size="1">[ November 20, 2003 09:12 PM: Message edited by: reved ]</font>

[Tard]

I saw a hella LOT of scriptwriting borrowed (if not directly 'stolen') from the John Wyndham novel "The Day Of The Triffids"... (WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD!!)

1) Neither main-character is introduced until "sometime after" the apocalypse. Both cases take place in Britian and they both wake in a hospital-bed after society has already fallen.

2) The main-character meets a female survivor, whom he eventually falls in love with and fights to keep alive.

3) In DOTT, 'Mason' runs into groups of scavengers, criminals & military personelle. In 28-Days, the same elements are mixed-up, but only slightly. The criminals and Military are condensed together in this flick. The 'military' ARE criminals only sticking together because of their commanders promise of hot sex to come.

[rocketmaster]

But is it any good?

Never did understand the appeal of Zombies, other than the sheer comedy of it. But I just adore end of the world apocolyptic nightmares. ::grin::

I hear these zombies are preternaturally fast. Are they actually zombies? I mean, as in resurrected dead? Do they actually give good hard science reasons for super-speedy resurrected dead people zooming around the place?
???!!!

Oh, and where does it take place...is it supposed to be London? What's the time period - modern or future?

[Tard]

Originally, I was expcting pretty much what you heard about 28-Days Later; that it was a clone of Night Of The Living Dead. It's not.

The movies structure IS a zombie-movie (the infected only attack the un-infected, not each other), though the infected aren't "the living dead". They're still alive, meaning it just doesn't take a headshot to 'kill' them, any serious wound will kill them. They're also hyperkinetic, not the shambling pasty-faced corpses seen in the Romero-style of zombies. Really fast & really ferrocious. A lone infected person can wipe out entire regiments of troops.

The "RAGE" supervirus infects people within seconds, and the infected cut scratch & bite anyone they see. They also tend to projectile-vomit liters of their infected blood all over the place, so the tiniest droplet of blood or saliva entering thru a scrape, orally, thru the tearducts, bitemark, etc. will infect someone within about 20-seconds. Then they go nuts & attack anyone left.

Yea, it's all of Britian where the movie takes place, starting in London, but there is mention of the infection travelling thruout Europe & "the last news broadcast" mentioning that New York had been hit. It's modern-day, or a very-near future. No unknown technological gizmos make an appearance [img]tongue.gif[/img] .

[rocketmaster]

Wow, now I do want to see it. Good sales pitch Reved.

[Tard]

Disclaimer: I do not work for the studio.

[rocketmaster]

It's on HBO right now and I'm watching!!!
Who's the guy that woke up in the hospital? Is it one of the activists or someone else?

I thought the zombies were going to be really scarily preternaturally fast...all they do is run around like regular humans??? That's not very scary.
[img]confused.gif[/img]

[rocketmaster]

Ok, so it was a LITTLE scary. Very suspenseful. I liked it. I even liked it a LOT! It had enough of the stuff my personal private nightmares are made up of to keep my interest.

There were a couple of annoyances, such as the way non-zombie characters were in one location and then in a different completely improbable spot the next shot, without time to get there. I also don't understand why the infected didn't just eat something. I mean, they weren't eating who they killed........ok, ok, if I wrote it, I would explain it as their hunger for food was replaced by a ravenous bloodlust, and no matter how much they killed, it still couldn't satisfy their hunger, because their natural hunger mechanism was reprogrammed or misfiring in their infected brains. Is that about right?

Things I liked....that black cab was cool, want one. The views of the English countryside were a treat. All of the lead actors were strong and believeable, I liked them all. The story was relatively good, and for what was obviously a low budget film, I felt like I was seeing more than they could probably afford. A lot of effort there, and it wasn't wasted.

I still want to know the answer to my last post though.


<marquee> [img]rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]mad.gif[/img] </marquee>

[Tard]

Originally posted by rocketmaster:
It's on HBO right now and I'm watching!!!
Who's the guy that woke up in the hospital? Is it one of the activists or someone else?

I thought the zombies were going to be really scarily preternaturally fast...all they do is run around like regular humans??? That's not very scary.
[img]confused.gif[/img]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I haven't watched the movie since November, so some of my memory's probably blurred. Don't remember much about the origins of the main-guy (wakes up in Hospital), but as for being 'fast', you don't think they are? Before 28-Days Later, nearly all zombie movies had them stumbling around like pasty-faced Qualude-poppers. Sure, they don't move unnaturally-fast (like something outa Interview With The Vampire or an episode of X-Files), but that might have actually hurt the movie. The infected go insane with the RAGE virus, they don't become super-human. Hehee, and I never said it was 'scary', though I did quite enjoy it. [img]wink.gif[/img]