Halloween Special

In the spirit of the holiday I decided to review a zombie movie. Also in the spirit of The Simpsons I’m doing it a week late. Although this isn’t your usual horror movie like most zombie movies filled with gore and cheap scares. 28 Days Later understands that zombies make excellent movies but it is hard to build entire movies around them. This is a good zombie movie because the plot isn’t based around them. The zombies are just set pieces that could easily be replaced with a story line along the lines what would happen if everyone on earth disappeared sans maybe 20 people.

In fact, in the third act the movie becomes less about zombies and more about the protagonist, Jim, saving his new girlfriend from a group of non-infected soldiers that plan on raping her. Needless to say he succeeds in saving her using a clever plan that involves using the undead to his advantage.

All being said this isn’t a perfect film, there are a few plot holes like how a bike messenger was able to take down around 15 trained soldiers guerilla style. What this movie does do well it does very well. The entire movie does an excellent job of making the viewer feel alone, the entire movie feels empty. Using many shots of the empty streets of England, which I imagine was hard to do seeing as the place is known for being very busy.

I’m going to end saying going to say that I shouldn’t be surprised this movie is so good. With director Danny Boyle the man behind Slum Dog Millionaire, the academy award winning love story, and the upcoming 127 Hours the true story of a man stuck with his arm under a boulder for 5 days.