28 Days Later... (2002)

Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.

Director:

Danny Boyle

Writer:

Alex Garland

Stars:

Alex Palmer, Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris

10 wins & 25 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alex Palmer	...	Activist
Bindu De Stoppani	...	Activist
Jukka Hiltunen	...	Activist
David Schneider	...	Scientist
Cillian Murphy	...	Jim
Toby Sedgwick	...	Infected Priest
Naomie Harris	...	Selena
Noah Huntley	...	Mark
Christopher Dunne	...	Jim's Father
Emma Hitching	...	Jim's Mother
Alexander Delamere	...	Mr. Bridges
Kim McGarrity	...	Mr. Bridges' Daughter
Brendan Gleeson	...	Frank
Megan Burns	...	Hannah
Justin Hackney	...	Infected Kid

Storyline

Animal activists invade a laboratory with the intention of releasing chimpanzees that are undergoing experimentation, infected by a virus -a virus that causes rage. The naive activists ignore the pleas of a scientist to keep the cages locked, with disastrous results. Twenty-eight days later, our protagonist, Jim, wakes up from a coma, alone, in an abandoned hospital. He begins to seek out anyone else to find London is deserted, apparently without a living soul. After finding a church, which had become inhabited by zombie like humans intent on his demise, he runs for his life. Selena and Mark rescue him from the horde and bring him up to date on the mass carnage and horror as all of London tore itself apart. This is a tale of survival and ultimately, heroics, with nice subtext about mankind's savage nature.

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Plot Keywords:

virus | survivor | coma | scientist | military | 

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Taglines:

Day 1: Exposure - Day 3: Infection - Day 8: Epidemic - Day 15: Evacuation - Day 20: Devastation

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence and gore, language and nudity

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English Spanish Finnish French Korean Sign Language Italian

Release Date:

27 June 2003 (USA)

Also Known As:

29 Days Later

Filming Locations:

Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

$8,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$35,769 (Hong Kong) (21 November 2003)

Gross:

$164,846 (Hong Kong) (28 November 2003)

Company Credits

Production Co:

DNA Films, British Film Council

Technical Specs

Runtime:

113 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Jim, Selena, Mark, Frank, and Hannah's surnames are never revealed during the film or in the end credits. Likewise, Jim's parents names are never revealed.

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Goofs

Major West's SA80 fires many more rounds than would likely be in the magazine. Most hand-held weapons give less than a minute of fire before they need to be reloaded.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Activist: Bingo.

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Crazy Credits

Other than the Fox Searchlight logo, there are no opening credits whatsoever. The title of the movie, 28 Days Later, only appears as a descriptive subtitle.

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Connections

Referenced in QI: Fight or Flight (2009)

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Soundtracks

"Frosty the Snowman"
Written by Jack Rollins and Steve Nelson
(c) Hill and Range Songs Inc.
Used by kind permission of Carlin Music Corp.

User Reviews

An Existential Drama,with Horror woven in

The 2003 State-side release of Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" was advertised as being a shockful scare-fest of a movie. I didn't get around to seeing it until a few days ago and I gotta feel like that was somewhat of an embellishment on the promoters' part.

When environmental terrorists attack a lab that contains diseased chimps who are infected with a "Rage" virus, they unwittingly let loose a plague that lays waste to England and(perhaps)the rest of society. The 28 Days later of the title cuts to a mostly abandoned London where a coma-tized bicycle courier named Jim(Cillian Murphy,effective) wakes from his stasis to find himself alone in a hospital. As he searches London for signs of life,he is rescued from raging zombies by a couple of survivalists(one of them,the lovely Naomie Harris)who he follows from place to place to keep alive. From there,he also meets a man and his daughter(Brendan Gleeson,terrific,and Megan Burns,good)and they try to find a refuge out of London-town. A recorded message of a "paradise" where "salvation" can be found is tracked by Frank(the man) on his shortwave radio.

This film feels more like a meditation on what happens to people when they are reduced to their lowest elements. A friend of mine told me that this movie's running zombies was what inspired the zombies in the remake of "Dawn of the Dead",but where "Dawn of..." was pretty much a full-throttle action/horror hybrid from about start to finish,this film plays more like a "What if..." movie,with less emphasis on the creatures themselves and more on the (lucky?) survivors. There are also disturbing lessons on the nature OF survival,too.

An very interesting and disturbing flick that probably sold itself wrong.