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 | laboratory | london england | zombie apocalypse | 

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Taglines:

Be Thankful For Everything, For Soon There Will Be Nothing...

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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

Country:

UK

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

27 June 2003 (USA)

Also Known As:

Exterminio

Filming Locations:

Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

$8,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£1,500,079 (United Kingdom), 3 November 2002, Limited Release

Opening Weekend USA:

$10,061,858, 29 June 2003, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$45,064,915

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$37,654,970

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

Cillian Murphy would go on to star in the sci-fi thriller, Sunshine (2007), along side Rose Byrne who had starred in 28 Weeks Later (2007), the sequel to this movie.

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Goofs

When Major West and the unit he belonged to were deployed to the original motorway barricade, or whatever mission they were initially assigned, chances are, with the speed and haste that the infection spread among the population and masses, they were probably deployed immediately with their camouflaged field uniforms they were currently wearing and all the necessary equipment, NBC gear, weapons, ammunition, explosives, that they could carry. Yet we see him at the dinner in his dress uniform. It would be highly unlikely that he would have put that dress uniform in his equipment kit bag or backpack, which each individual soldier either hand carries a carries over his back.

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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

Referenced in Supernatural: Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire (2015)

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Soundtracks

Ave Maria
Sung by Perri Alleyne
Composed by Charles Gounod
Arranged by John Murphy

User Reviews

What makes it different...

This film is about a virus, 'Rage' virus that makes the infected person mad with extreme rage and hungry for blood. Within 28 days one outbreak in London caused entire Britain dead or evacuated leaving behind a blood-thirsty infected population and a handful of solitary normal persons. Civilization came to a halt, society got destroyed while those limited survivors fight for existence among frequent attack by the vicious victims.

Sounds familiar? Then what makes "28 Days Later..." a classic among a horde of zombie/biohazard movies? Simply a touch of art that Danny Boyle is able to bring what others could not. The others focus too much on extensive, special-effects-controlled, gory action sequences between infected and normals, with heavy background music. But here there's always a tinge of sadness, emptyness, helplessness. Consider that empty London scene with that background music. We found out there's much else to show than just electrifying action or gore to describe the picture of life in this condition that these movies talk about.

There are mistakes and loopholes in this movie. But that couldn't weaken the otherwise tight-gripping storyline. The greatest achievement of this movie is to make one viewer stay neutral throughout the film, without taking any side in the first place. Because the virus we talk about is simply used as a metaphor. 'Rage' is shown as a social disease. That makes it a 'serious' film, not a flick. Every person, even the harshest critic of zombie horror movies should watch this. 5 out of 5 stars.

Oh, did I mention Cillian Murphy was awesome?