28 Days Later: Danny Boyle

Considering my love for the horror genre, I'm a little ashamed that it's taken me a decade to finally watch Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. The film is renowned for having revitalized the zombie sub-genre of horror with the introduction of "rage zombies." While for decades zombie cinema had been dominated by slow-shuffling, mindless George A. Romero zombies, Boyle re-envisioned the classic horror villains as lightning-fast, quasi-intelligent hunters. Set in a post-apocalyptic Great Britain, a bicycle courier named Jim awakens from a month-long coma in a hospital to discover that these "rage zombies" have completely eliminated the British population. After getting chased by a few of these deadly creatures, he is saved by a pair of survivors. They tell him that the virus has escaped from Great Britain and has annihilated the world. From there, Jim and a rag-tag group of other survivors trek to an Army blockade near Manchester that supposedly has a cure for the "rage virus." When they arrive they find that the blockade is really a group of soldiers who have set up camp in a giant mansion. And, of course, they are corrupt. This is all fairly standard stuff for the zombie sub-genre. But Boyle pours so much passion and energy into 28 Days Later that these reliable archetypes seem fresh and new. The opening scenes where Jim traverses a completely empty London remain some of the most striking and awe-inspiring moments in Boyle's career.  But after the chilling majesty of these scenes, much of the film devolves into shaky-cam delirium. We almost never get a good look at the "rage zombies." Whenever they appear onscreen the camera begins to have a seizure. I know that this technique was new, fresh, and innovative back in 2002, but it hasn't aged well. What was once stylistically daring now seems amateurish. It's unfair of me to say so, I know. But despite my complaints, 28 Days Later is still a great and effective horror film.

8/10