A Film Review By John Barker
- Who said they don't make em like they used to?

The duelling genres of science fiction and horror have been explored recently by British cinema with the promising but ultimately hollow Long Time Dead and now 28 Days Later from director Danny Boyle whose past credits include Trainspotting and The Beach. Along with the help of novelist turned screenwriter Alex Garland they have crafted a revisionist post-apocalyptic zombian saga. But the end project distances itself from the so-called ‘schlock’ horror of the 70’s and 80’s.

In the film newcomer Cillian Murphy plays Jim, who awakes after being in a coma to find that his homestead of London is deserted and ravaged by unknown forces. But soon Jim finds a church full of what seems to be dead people who suddenly start to attack him. After a short chase he is saved by survivalist Selena, (Naomie Harris), who informs him that most of the population of the country have been infected with a disease which makes them crave human flesh.

On there travels they find Frank, (Brendon Gleeson), and his daughter who cling to the ideal of hope and a new beginning in Manchester of all places, where a optimistic radio transmission originated from.

After arriving jus outside Manchester which is engrossed in fire, they are escorted to an army stronghold where Major Henry west, (Christopher Eccleston), and a small group of immature soldiers are trying to build a future.

Unfortunately their idea of the future is a world of male desire and indulgence that leads Jim to turn to a primitive predatory state to rescue his companions.

It is this final third of the film that poses the most challenging moral and ethical questions to the audience. The army stronghold, the utopian ideal of our survivors, transforms into a masculinised hell where the soldiers libinal impulses are nurtured by the quasi-evil Eccleston to the point where they are quite willing to rape the two females.

However what makes Boyle’s undead creation truly a success is the character building, Jim is a superbly crafted configuration who evolves from a rather simplistic and almost childhood state to a rather matured father figure. During the films nail biting finale Jim reminds me heavily of Leonardo DeCaprio’s mentally unhinged and isolated figure from Boyle’s last film The Beach which was based on the novel by Alex Garland.

The script which was written for the screen by Garland is full of organic moral conflicts which at some points would be better suited to the page than the silver screen. However what Garland has created is a wonderful revisioning of George A. Romero’s Living Dead saga. Firstly when Jim is attacked in his homestead it is very reminiscent of the final scene of Night of the Living Dead where zombies siege a vulnerable hideout.

Secondly, there is the rather amusing scene where Jim, Selena and Frank go shopping in a deserted supermarket in central London which echoes Dawn of the Dead’s shopping mall which in one sense is a haven for the characters but at the same time a prison.

Finally the films climax set in the military encampment is surely inspired by Day of the Dead which also located itself in an army installation and is attacked by the marauding walking dead.

The films terrifying beasties seem to me to be hybridizations of the classic vampire legend and the more post-modern ideal of Romero’s dead disciples. As they move with the speed of a cheetah on a coke-fuelled bender, but devour human flesh in a manner that would require them to leave most of London’s high quality restaurants. It is their creation which elicits the most interesting parallel to today’s society. In the films opening sequence we see a group of animal activists break into a scientific institution to discover a series of psychological and physical tests being performed on monkey’s. They try to set them free but are warned by one of the scientists that they contain ‘the rage!!!’ We as an audience assume that this is the cause of the zombification. Given that this is the 21^st century the filmmakers have included this prologue implicitly to criticize the modern fascination with gene therapy and genetic modification, in Night of the Living Dead it was the 60’s hence radioactivity. But the most ironic factor of this sequence is the Darwinist influence; the monkeys forcefully evolve the human race into a new state and that the down fall of civilization and mankind is brought about by Greenpeace or one of the other environmentalist groups.

There is one other shot which particularly drew my attention to Boyle’s direction, after the group of survivors leave London they are seen driving through the countryside and at one point drive through a Monet-styled-Impressionist painting landscape. This is an interesting technique which the director uses wonderfully to undermine the rather overly optimistic tone of this scene which would not have been out of place in Summer Holiday.

One of the films less-publicized elements is its pioneering use of digital cameras, although Star Wars: Attack of the Clones was filmed in digital, this is real digital footage almost like a nightmarish home video and certainly felt like it compared to the smooth clarity of 35mm. This digital dystopia is a wonderful platform for cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to sculpt with light and he does so daringly on many an occasion to dramatic effect, especially during the films rain soaked climax.

However while aesthetically pleasing the films central emotional premise of Jim and Selena falling in love feels a little forced and obvious as does the rather silly surrogate family that forms after Brendon Gleeson’s demise.

This, on the whole, is the first step towards a brighter future for British cinema as it entertains but remains still authentically British for those jingoistic purists out there. In terms of frights it is more psychologically disturbing than most of the other films in this sub-genre but still retains its rotting teeth in the cannibal stakes.