28 Days Later: A Post-Apocalyptic Fever Dream

28 Days Later has a strange reputation among moviegoers. Basically, it's the movie that everyone knows about, but no one's actually seen. But with the trailer for its legacy sequel 28 Years Later going viral, I thought that maybe it was time to finally give this movie a watch. After I finished it, I came to a variety of conclusions that contained some wording that even I felt was strangely specific. For instance, one such conclusion was that 28 Days Later felt like Apocalypse Now if it were made with a third of Coppola's budget and half of his talent - oh, and with zombies. Now, don't hear this as me knocking the efforts of Alex Garland and Co. because there are quite a few legitimately good things to be said about this movie. 28 Days Later is a strange little British flick that is quite unlike anything else I've ever seen before, flaws and all, and a lot of its budgetary restraints are utilized in such a way that this movie occasionally takes on the quality of a strange, alien, and yet weirdly familiar dream. Watching this movie, I got such a sense of déjà vu that I'm still trying to pinpoint. I get that the situation of Jim, the main protagonist of this movie, is similar to that of Rick Grimes in AMC's The Walking Dead, but the sense goes deeper than that. And maybe it's best for that sense to stay as it is. After all, it only adds to the dreamlike quality of 28 Days Later in ways that will probably only keep me coming back to the movie in an attempt to find out what exactly about it is so strangely familiar. But as for the actual quality of the movie, is it any good? Well, yeah. The movie's not perfect, but its story is smartly told, and its setpieces are effective - so much so that pretty much everything about it eventually became a zombie movie cliche. And even if it may have some annoying tendencies that I haven't often seen replicated in any other major motion picture, I'll state up front that this movie is more than worth your time.

28 Days Later follows a former courier named Jim as he wakes up from a month-long coma to discover a deserted London that has been ravaged by something known as the rage virus, a pathogen that causes those it infects to descend into a state of extreme, uncontrollable rage. When Jim finds a small group of survivors, he joins them on a journey to investigate a lone radio signal promising safety.

One thing that surprised me about this movie is how tacky it looks. Another thing that surprised me even more was how charming I thought the tackiness of this movie's visuals was. 28 Days Later sometimes looks almost like a found footage movie, or at least much closer to that line than other movies would dare wander. I liked the sub-par cinematography of the movie because it looked completely unlike anything I had ever seen before, so maybe you think it unfair for me to give it a pass in this area, but watch the movie, and you'll probably understand exactly what I'm trying to get at here. However, I didn't share the same sentiment about the likewise tacky score of 28 Days Later, which is....just awful. It's occasionally used in some really inappropriate ways at really inappropriate times, and I wish it would let the foot off of the auditory gas at times so that it wasn't so overwhelming.

Likewise, some of the movie's sound mixing could have used a decent bit of work, as the peaks are too high, and the lows too low. I occasionally found myself wincing and reaching for the volume control when a zombie would suddenly appear after a quiet stretch and blow my eardrums away. Also, this movie is really effects-heavy, not unlike something a middle schooler might make with iMovie. Yes, 28 Days Later is way, way, way too effects-heavy for its own good, and I find myself wishing that the editors had exercised more restraint, as the constant use of unnecessary special effects became tiresome after a while.

However, even if the film's aesthetic aspects could have (for better or for worse) used some work, the characterization and story of 28 Days Later are both a big win. I like the contrast between the initial naivete of Jim and the initial hardened, stay alive at any cost spirit of Selena, one of the survivors. It's an interesting dynamic if not necessarily anything I hadn't seen before, and it was pretty cool seeing Jim and Selena compromise, adapt, and eventually meet each other in the middle. But enough movie magic and sentimentality, you might say. What about the scares? Well, being a horror movie, the suspense sequences in 28 Days Later really keep you on your toes, and the combination of a distinct core cast, a simple goal for this cast to accomplish, and some great scares that pop up here and there to spice things up keep this movie moving.

28 Days Later is....really something. Watching it felt a lot like watching a bad student movie, except for the fact that the writing is actually fluid and strong, and even features a cast of characters that is easy to root for. In some ways, I wish that the atrocious and atrociously overused special effects didn't keep reminding me that this was a movie, but conversely, the tackiness of 28 Days Later can be legitimately charming. In some ways, I'd never seen anything like it before, and in others, it feels like every movie I've ever seen. It's a lot like a fever dream in the mind of a great writer - strange, fantastic, and weirdest of all, narratively sound. Jim, Selena, and the other characters in this movie may not be much to write home about, and the effects...well, let's just be nice to them at the end of this review and call them cute. But the narrative is deceptively simple and even intelligent at times. After all, there's a reason the tropes of this movie have been copied and recopied to death. In some ways, I wish this movie was more than a cult classic, but in most, I'm content for it to stay the way that it is - and I'm sure its following would agree, although I imagine that it'll get more publicity with the imminent release of 28 Years Later being just around the bend. Part of the fun of being a cinephile is finding new movies to watch, and a part of me takes a lot of satisfaction knowing that a lot of people will find this movie and have no idea what they're getting into.

28 Days Later - 8/10

Revelation 2:2