Six months after the rage virus was inflicted on the population of Great Britain, the US Army helps to secure a small area of London for the survivors to repopulate and start again. But not everything goes according to plan.
A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.
A freak storm unleashes a species of bloodthirsty creatures on a small town, where a small band of citizens hole up in a supermarket and fight for their lives.
Director:
Frank Darabont
Stars:
Thomas Jane,
Marcia Gay Harden,
Laurie Holden
Two strangers, who awaken in a room with no recollection of how they got there, soon discover they're pawns in a deadly game perpetrated by a notorious serial killer.
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.Written by
Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The hospital in the film is a real day hospital, open only during the week. The trust managers of the hospital hire out the building to filmmakers for weekends, and the productions pay the hospital directly, meaning the money from filming goes directly to the hospital's trust fund. See more »
Goofs
The common trope of the zombies being undead with a craving for brains (or human flesh) is notably and deliberately averted in this film, pinning the reason for the devastation on the rage virus which turns people into violently aggressive killers - but this opens up a considerable plot hole: Why don't the rage victims kill each other? "Normal" zombies don't because the undead kill the living but the rage-infected seem to act more like a dog in the final stage of rabies, attacking anything that moves and/or makes noise - the infected have no reason not to attack each other. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Activist:
[the three animal activists arrive to the laboratory]
Bingo.
Activist:
[when seeing all of the caged apes]
Fucking hell.
See more »
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. See more »
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." See more »
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?
337 of 430 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
| Report this
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?