The next film in the 28 [Unit of Time] series, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple hits theaters this weekend, and yours portly is hoping that Dr. Wife and I can squeeze in a matinee showing this Saturday.  It also seems that Shudder has a couple of the earlier films on its service, including 28 Days Later (2002), which I stayed up late last night to finish watching.

I wasn’t sure I had seen this flick before, but several of the key scenes did click with me (like the father getting a single drop of infected blood in his eye, causing him to go made with the Rage virus).  I have seen it, but I’d forgotten most of the major plot points and the ending.  With the new film releasing this weekend, it was a good opportunity to refresh my memory (Shudder also has 28 Weeks Later [2007], which I watched recently as well).  I’d forgotten what a great film it is.

28 Days Later opens with a group of eco-warriors breaking into a laboratory full of enraged, infected chimpanzees.  A lab worker desperately warns them not to release the monkeys, but they jump to the conclusion that the infected monkeys are harmless—with lethal consequences.  Twenty-eight days after this blunder, our hero, Cillian Murphy—uh, I mean, Jim—wakes up from a coma following a bicycle courier accident, only to find the world abandoned and in ruins (the classic setup for many modern zombie-esque stories; see also: The Walking Dead).

28 Days Later is credited with kickstarting the zombie movie craze of the early 2000s, a craze that had almost as much staying power as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but with less wokeness.  It’s easy to see why:  the film explores all of the questions that good zombie stories do:

• What happens when society and the government break down?
• How do people accustomed to urban life survive in the absence of supply chains (and with ravenous zombies and/or infected people around them)?
• What are the chances of survival?  A cure?  What does the future look like in the long-run (or is there a “long-run”)?
• How do pre-collapse institutions function—if at all?  How do people fill the power vacuum left behind?
• How do people handle the psychological trauma of seeing loved ones killed or changed into the new creatures?  How do they handle killing family members who have succumbed to the infection?
• If the zombification is the result of a virus or has a concrete medical cause, is there a cure?  Is it ethical to kill the diseased if they cannot control their actions (I would argue, “yes,” citing self-defense; but what if a cure is already available)?

And so on.  28 Days Later asks these questions and more.

The film consists of essentially two parts:  the first sees Jim linking up with other survivors and adapting to post-apocalyptic London.  The second sees Jim and three other survivors making their way to and living in Manchester, where they find a battalion of soldiers living in a mansion.

The first part scratches that “superhero origin story” itch:  it develops the world in which Jim finds himself.  We see the struggle to find food; the side effects of eating nothing but candy bars and drinking nothing but soda; the desperate attempts to collect water.

There are also extensive philosophical discussions about this new world.  Jim maintains a cautious optimism, seeking to solve the problems and looking ahead to the future.  Selena, the heroine and something of a love interest for Jim, is hardened and nihilistic, believing there is no hope beyond the present moment, and that survival is the only imperative.  These viewpoints allow both characters to grow throughout the story, with Selena pulling out Jim’s harder edge while Jim helps to soften the jaded Selena.

In the second part, the three survivors—Jim, Selena, and Hannah; Hannah’s father succumbs to the Rage virus, as mentioned previously—find themselves adapting to a group of soldiers who, at first blush, offer a chance at salvation, but who turn out to be monsters in their own way.  Their commanding officer has promised his soldiers women, as “women mean the future” in the form of children.  Selena and the young Hannah (it’s unclear how old she is, but she’s barely a teenager) become the object the soldiers’ lurid desires, and Jim is seen as a threat to be executed.

Naturally, Jim makes an escape, and manages to use the infected in the area to his advantage, toppling the soldiers’ hideout and saving the girls in the process.

The cinematography in 28 Days Later is incredible.  Much of the film looks like it was shot through a grainy VHS camcorder, but it lacks the nausea-inducing shakiness of found footage films.  The shots are at times painterly in their composition, and really showcase the beauty of the English countryside.  One poignant moment sees Jim, Selena, Hannah, and her still-living father picnicking while wild horses run free among lush English grasses.  That admiration for nature and its beauty permeates the series, offering up a subtle commentary on humanity’s own destructive tendencies.

The film ends with a question, but a hopeful one.  The world—even a post-apocalyptic one filled with zombies—is a hard place, but not a hopeless one.  The message seems to reject Selena’s earlier nihilism, as Selena herself comes to reject it.  It’s a powerful reminder that, even in the darkest of times, there is a dawn coming.

Or maybe a Dawn of the Dead.  Sorry, I couldn’t resist!