28 DAYS LATER (2002) - Fast zombies?!? Game over, man.

I apologize for the lack of posts recently, seeing as how I've been fairly busy with job interviews and the addictive drug that are Black Ops and CoH: Online. However, I have been watching a few good movies so I have a bit of a back log to make up for. Recently, I've been watching The Walking Dead on AMC and if you haven't seen it, give it a shot. It's a damn good show that's been picking up pace since the pilot episode and there's only a few episodes left before the season ends. Anyways, seeing all that zombie mayhem got me in the mood for some zombie post-apocalyptic horror, and I decided I'd give one of my personal favorites of the genre another watch.

28 Days Later is directed by Danny Boyle, of Sunshine and Slumdog Millionaire fame, and suffice to say, it's a bit different from most zombie movies. The flick kicks off with some animal liberation nutjobs breaking into a British medical laboratory and releasing monkeys infected with the highly contagious "Rage virus." Despite the frantic pleas of the scientist they capture, who warns them that a single drop of blood can infect anyone, the activists release the animals, and the chimps go batshit crazy and attack everyone. It turns out that Rage is a virus that turns anyone infected into, well... a raging maniac with a taste for murder and human flesh. And as opposed to the generic slow, clumsy zombies we're used to seeing in movies, the infected in Boyle's film are fast as Kenyan sprinters and absolutely tireless - jumping, climbing and avoiding obstacles.

London is empty. Cillian is all alone. Except not. There's zombies. Fast ones.

After the lab scene, the screen fades to black and we're presented with the words "28 days later," and see as Jim (Cillian Murphy), a former bicycle courier, lies completely naked on a hospital bed. He awakens and makes his way through the deserted hospital. As he stumbles outside, he realizes that London is completely devoid of people, leading to some very impressive shots of Jim in his hospital robe walking down an empty Westminster Bridge in amazement and horror. Jim quickly learns that he is in fact not alone. He is chased out of a church by a mob of deranged zombies intent on eating his face, when he is saved by two survivors, Mark and Selena (Naomie Harris).

The group takes shelter in an abandoned shop and Jim is told about the spreading of the virus, the chaos that followed and the evacuation and breakdown of the British government. Jim insists on visiting his parents to see if they are alive, and the other two survivors reluctantly agree. They arrive at the house the next day to see Jim's parents lying dead in their bed. Their forced to spend the night there, and in the middle of the night they're attacked by the infected. Mark is bitten and Selena kills him at once with a huge machete, knowing that he'd turn into one of the zombies near instantly. Selena and Jim eventually meet Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter Hannah, who are holed up in their apartment, and as a group decide to follow instructions Frank has heard on the radio announcing a survivor's center near Manchester.

The zombie apocalypse? I still needs my Cocoa Pebbles dawg.

28 Days Later has a relentless pace that never lets up, and Danny Boyle has a great talent for creating excruciating tension with his scenes. Walking into an abandoned gas station or going around a corner, you're constantly expecting something brutal to happen. Strangely enough, there's not a lot of gore compared to some other flicks of the genre, but the effect is the same and doesn't subtract from the horror aspect. The infected are genuinely badass - they're vicious, very fast, agile and have a habit of exploding out of the screen when you least expect them. The performances are generally good as well, with Cillian Murphy having a great starring role in his first major well known gig. He's believable and does a good job of portraying the fear and terror he goes through in the scenes.

It took me a while to finally watch this movie again, but I'm glad I finally did. Boyle's movie is an instant classic in the zombie genre, no doubt. It's a fresh take and one that is worthy of watching with some friends to maximize the scares and thrills. Very recommended.

TL;DR - Scarecrow from Batman Begins hides from zombies in England. Profit? - 8/10