In an opening that almost mirrors that of The Walking Dead, Cillian Murphy (Jim) wakes up in a London hospital to an eerie world of quiet. It’s not long before he encounters a nest of the Infected, zombies to us, and he’s running for his life, wondering what the hell is going on.
He’s rescued by the tough, take no prisoners, Selena (Naomie Harris) and her friend/fellow survivor Mark (Noah Huntley), and he learns the world as he knows it has come to an end. Jim and Selena team up with Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns), and go in search of other survivors, following the directions of a radio transmission, but the safe haven turns out to be anything but.
This is a low budget, horror flick with plenty of action, pure terror, family love and great acting. Danny Boyle is responsible for what is possibly one of the best zombie films ever. The shaky camera work gives a sense of reality to the action, pulling the audience in to the nightmare. Most disturbing of all in this post-apocalyptic world is the reaction of people to this disaster. As it turns out, zombies are not the real monsters; They would be men, specifically soldiers in this particular tale. This brave new world is no place for women.
The tension is eased at times by moments of humour, like Gleeson offering Crème de Menthe to his new guests after they’ve just survived a zombie chase, and the four of them going on a shopping spree at an empty grocery shop and leaving credit cards behind to cover the cost of the goods. The world may be full of reeking corpses, but together they realise they can make a new life for themselves, and a few moments of joy give the sense of hope. Just don’t cling too much to this hope. This is a horror movie after all.
These zombies are not the slow-moving, shuffling corpses we’ve become familiar with in The Walking Dead. These guys are fast, as fast as the living and therefore, ten times more deadly and frightening than usual. 28 Days Later is gritty, real and terrifying. *****
Come back on Friday when I review the excellent follow up to 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later.
Who’s seen this one?
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Emma's Ramblings on Supernatural Fiction 
You make me want to watch this. But I can’t. I don’t do well with horror movies, but Zombie Horror movies? *shudder* I’ll have nightmares for years.
Great review though.
It is quite scary, and brutal, so maybe best to give it a miss, Trish.
Thanks for reading.
Great review! I really haven’t made the huge dive into the Zombie phenom as of yet…but this may be a good place to start! Funny that even with all of that, they attempt to cover the cost of their groceries:) Humanity at its best:) ,lol
Thanks, Michelle. I guess their credit cards were weighing them down 🙂
Loved this film, smashing (blood curdling!!!!) review
It was excellent, Kevin. Cheers for stopping by and reading the blood curdling review!
I think I vaguely remember this movie. I’m not a big fan of zombie movies. Zombies gross me out more than scare me. Bleh. Give me ghosts and vampires. LOL
They are quite gross, especially in this film and the follow up, 28 Weeks Later. I had to watch the death scenes through my fingers
I have seen this one! I had a love/hate relationship with this movie, as we’ve talked about. I agree that the movie was well done and had great moments of humor. And, yeah, that thing with the soldiers creeped me out.
When I first saw this, I didn’t sit through the credits, so the ending I thought happened was actually a dream! I was very upset when I saw the real ending 😦
Exactly!
Reblogged this on M.S. Fowle and commented:
Effing LOVE this movie! 😉
Thanks. I effing love it too 🙂
I love this movie so much! It was first Cillian Murphy film – yum! And Naomi Harris is great! I almost didn’t recognize her in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Great review!
I didn’t recognise her until I read her name in the credits.
I sorta cheated… I knew I knew her from somewhere, so I checked out the cast on imdb.com to find her name. 😉
Great review and I really liked this film, also I would be careful because people can go nuts if you say this film is a zombie film, I get it but people go crazy. I liked the waking up to an empty London scene 😀
Why would people go crazy? This film screams zombie, no?
Imagine waking up in a deserted city. Pretty freaky. Thanks for stopping by, Tim.
Life less people trying to eat other people, yes i would scream zombie if i saw that, but the crazy people would say they are infected with rage virus (not the undead), basically nerds needing to be very precise about things that are imaginary 😀
Love this movie, and the sequel! I’m a huge fan of Christopher Eccleston, he played his role well here. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched either one though.
He was so calm and reasonable sounding, he freaked me out.
I love this film. And I would say that the only thing more scary than a fast zombie is a fast zombie on fire, which happens in the sequel. LOL.
Ooh that is scarier! No zombies on fire please.
Loved ’28 Days Later’! Fast zombies freak me out!
They freak us all out, Serena 🙂
I agree, this is an excellent zombie movie, one of my favorites. The fast zombies scare the bejeezus out of me, too. Can’t wait for World War Z to come out!