“Finally, a work that is consistent with zombie mythology,” you sigh as contaminated bodily fluids enter the mouths of the characters before you onscreen, inevitably leading to infection after decades of screaming vigilantes, covered in–and undoubtedly having ingested–tainted blood, all to no discernable effect. Indeed, Danny Boyle corrects a criminally ignored zombie non sequitur with 28 Days Later, a work inspired as much by George Romero’s Day of the Dead as John Wyndham’s novel, The Day of the Triffids (as well as David Cronenberg and Romero’s early works, Rabid and The Crazies respectively). But does this particular bit of plot continuity generate enough applause to overshadow the disorganization and seeming lack of direction that plagues (sorry) 28 Days Later?
While attempting to make a delivery, a bicycle messenger named Jim (Cillian Murphy) collides with an automobile, thereby placing him in a coma. Twenty-eight days later he awakens to find the streets of London deserted before discovering that a plague, literally fueled by rage, has erupted throughout the region. After befriending a handful of motley survivors, Jim and his collective follow a distress signal to Manchester only to discover that the infected are the least of their worries.
A surface reading of Boyle’s work would entail a sociological rendering of rage upon the human populace using the microcosmic level as a metaphor for the whole. As Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston) astutely makes note, the world was much the same before the plague (as we see at the film’s open with televised scenes of violence shot prior to the outbreak) as it has come to be shortly thereafter as we are presented with “people killing people.” However, a closer examination reveals much more than a cautionary tale. Fascinatingly, 28 Days Later appears to be at political split-ends in that the work opens with an animal liberation group breaking into a research laboratory in order to free those enclosed within its walls. Easily, one could posit the argument of who the culpable party is, one’s stance upon the issue being largely dependent upon the individual’s personal ethics: the activists are either liberators, attempting to achieve an equilibrium in a speciest society, or they are terrorists, willfully violating private property as they operate under the ruse of naïve idealism. As such, it would appear at first that Boyle is merely holding a mirror up to contemporary society in order for his audience to gauge its own reaction. However, once a person takes into account Boyle’s exploitation and subsequent propagandizing of the fear of infection at the turn of the 21st Century, one can reasonably put forth that the film is a conservative effort, that is, until the individual is forced to take into account Boyle’s less-than-stringent presentation further into the film of the military as megalomania-led opportunistic rapists.
Indeed, philosophically (especially politically) 28 Days Later doesn’t strictly congeal as a great work of cinema must, yet outside of attempting to posit some ideas, albeit rather piecemeal and maladroitly at best (Boyle never attempts to contend with the obvious question of the victims of the plague, riddled with “rage,” selectively attacking those who are uninfected instead, as the disease’s title would most humbly humor, one and all), the film does present us with a very serene, poignantly juxtaposed, anarchist-led duality as God Speed You Black Emperor, Brian Eno, and Gabriel Fauré set the mood while we revel in both a handful of horses enjoying absolute freedom alongside Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter (Megan Burns) before the military appear, tyrannically seizing and exploiting everyone’s newfound autonomy. Thus Boyle does, very admirably, issue polar views of anarchy in action.
So what is the ultimate essence of 28 Days later? Perhaps there isn’t one. Maybe Boyle didn’t have an objective outside of creating a crippling vision of human terror lead by its own. If this is so and the work is devoid of underlying meaning, why is it so popular considering that the genesis for the film’s unseen antagonist is rather clumsily implied to be something rather commonplace and, as such, considering humanity has successfully grappled said ailment, little alarm or true fright could plausibly be generated by such an idea? The term “rage” has is etymological roots in the Latin “rabies.” Boyle’s film sustains such a notion that, in essence, this (or rather a second cousin) is the culprit at hand in that rabies, i.e. hydrophobia, causes its victims to die of thirst as the director’s fictional malady culminates in starvation which, if this is the case, I could have personally saved 28 Days Later’s scientists a lot of time by introducing them to the term “Bulimia.” (Yes, I’m aware that Bulimia isn’t literally contagious but Boyle doesn’t establish a metaphor for a cultural reading of his virus.)
Does this mean that perhaps Boyle’s work was merely guest to being in the right place, uttering the right words at the right time in that there exist perpetual hordes of zombie fans (though, formally, the antagonists of 28 Days Later are not undead) that were subsequently offered a slab of Romero-esque terror during a famine of such horrors? What if we take into account the rising popularity, exemplified in Zach Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead, of the Trioxin-fueled zombie likewise presented in 28 Days Later? So is Boyle’s film merely a “Right Place, Right Time” scenario? In this humble critic’s opinion, more yes than no.
One can easily concur with Boyle’s decision to implement a shuddering, digital home video POV of the post-apocalyptic world as the film’s humbling photography compliments the dire predicament laid bare before us but then there’s the point of the viewer only being able to process so many askew camera angles before fatigue sets in (and this before the aforementioned tranquil shots of utopian freedom). However, we are forced to applaud the symbolism witnessed in a shot of Frank’s aquarium, its water level succumbing to a terminal level for those encased inside, representing the plights of those surrounding the glass tank. Yet, what are we to make of the open ending which involves a fighter pilot circling over the survivors asking, “Will you send a helicopter?” (inflection be damned–the phrase is presented in Finnish!).
The question concerning the value of Danny Boyle’s film will inevitably be answered over the passage of time. Obviously, the work exhibits the director’s potential but it also presents us with some of the auteur’s blaring weaknesses. For the record, 28 Days Later is interesting and everyone should experience the film at least once. However, if forced to pass judgment, I would have to state that Boyle’s self-contained aesthetic bickering tends to detract from the work’s prowess to a negating degree but, then again, I’m only one critic and you, my friend, are yet another . . . .
– Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
