Zombie Bites - 28 Weeks Later (2007)

28 Weeks Later (2007)

22nd March

A good sequel, and a defining modern zombie movie.

Zombie Speed: You run for your life, they run for your life
Zombie Catalyst: The Rage virus
Zombie Contagion: Blood
Zombie IQ: Instinctual, with memories
Protagonists: Father, daughter, son, soldier and medic
Apocalypse Vibe: London without the tourists

Some zombie films spend their entirety telling a story that 28 Weeks relates in its first five minutes. We open with a nervous group quietly hiding from the hoarde in a barricaded cottage and no sooner have we had our moment of heart than the zombies attack and the survivors are thrust into heroic roles they didn’t want with all the survivalist rapid moral decision making that entails. For me the film was defined by the moment Don decided to leave his wife behind and make a run for it. The film doesn’t judge him, in fact it makes it pretty clear that if he’d tried to save her they both would have been fucked. And later when we experience the shrill condemnation that his kids lay at his feet, we can’t help but feel sympathetic. The world expects so much of you in a zombie crisis, but Don’s reaction made him one of us.

Verdict: Watch at least the first 10 minutes