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:

Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston

10 wins & 31 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 | military | london england | zombie apocalypse | laboratory | 

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Taglines:

The Days Are Numbered

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Genres:

Drama | Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence and gore, language and nudity

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

UK Spain

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

27 June 2003 (USA)

Also Known As:

28 Days Later...

Filming Locations:

Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

$8,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$10,061,858, 29 June 2003

Gross USA:

$45,064,915

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$85,720,385

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

The flashback scenes of Jim's parents were shot on Super 8mm film.

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Goofs

In the tower block scene, Selena notes that Jim has a headache because he has no fat and has eaten nothing but sugar, but they had just spent the night at Jim's parents house. Considering that his parents committed suicide, it should be very likely that there was still food in the pantry.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Activist: [the three animal activists arrive to the laboratory] Bingo.
Activist: [when seeing all of the caged apes] Fucking hell.

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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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Alternate Versions

Fox Searchlight attached an alternative downbeat ending to all 1400 US prints of the film, while it was still in U.S. release. The revised ending was the one that appeared in the original script, but the script's ending was ditched in favor of a happy ending after it did not test well. Director Danny Boyle decided "We can't do this to people, because it was such a tough journey anyway."

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Connections

References No Blade of Grass (1970)

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Soundtracks

Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera Sera)
Written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans
Published by Jay Livingston Music, Inc. and St. Angelo Music
Admin. by Universal-MCA Publishing, a division of Universal Studios, Inc.

User Reviews

A Cracking Zombie style horror, with substance

28 Days Later successfully takes the zombie genre to a new level, this movie is far more than just a horror flick. There are some great characters, that you actually care about, some you'll like, some you'll be glad to see killed, but all solidly performed.

The story is well written and avoids the clichéd cheesy scripts that are too often attached to the horror genre. And I must add that the direction is exactly what you would expect from 'Danny Boyle' top class.

For me though the real difference between this movie and many others made in this genre is as follows - The infected (the zombie like folk) are more menacing, they turn instantly and they move fast, a combination that would instill fear in every one of us.

I don't mean to run down the zombie movie genre - I am a huge fan of most of these films, but lets be honest its been done to death, re-animated and done again, and this was the first movie to break the mould and transcend to a new level.

If you like your horror flicks, then this is certainly worthy of your attention.

9/10