How exactly do you follow a generational classic like Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s 28 Days Later?
Do you follow it with a direct sequel following Jim, Selina, and Hanna, knowing that more screentime means that one of these characters would have to die to dodge accusations of toothlessness? Or do you go a different route: new characters, new setting, and the opportunity to fill out the world of infected Great Britain? 28 Weeks Later wisely went with the second option, but, sans Boyle and Garland (who were busy using the clout of 28 Weeks Later to get new projects off the ground).
Horror sequels have historically been cheap cash-ins on the surprise success of a movie – the idea was to milk the content quickly before audiences lost interest. Since the Unholy Slasher Trilogy of characters Freddie, Jason, and Michael, who filled the 80s and early 90s with mostly guff sequels that made crazy money at the box office – the idea is less to milk an idea for one extra movie but to consolidate it for multiple possible instalments. 28 Weeks Later doesn’t fall into this category for two reasons: one, it was the last film in the franchise until this year’s 28 Years Later, and two, there is nothing guff or half-arsed about this film at all.
While it is inevitable that 28 Weeks Later will be the odd one out of this trilogy by default, thanks to the return of Boyle and Garland, it is a film that expands the series in clever and cruel ways while also succeeding as an excellent film in its own right. Unlike 28 Days Later, which shot and edited its action to successfully hide its small budget, 28 Weeks Later magnifies the danger of its world in a similar way that George A Romero expanded his ideas from Dawn of the Dead to the more action-heavy Day of the Dead. We have infected sweeping through the London streets that were mostly empty in the first film, as well as the added threat of the US Army who take a more-is-more approach to the term friendly fire when the shit hits the fan.
There is less meditation on the brutality of the human race and a lot more straight examples of it. At the centre of the story is the two choices of married couple Don (Robert Carlyle) and Alice (Catherine McCormack) who I, with a joke to give this film some levity, will deem The Most Toxic Couple in Cinema. Don’s panic-stricken decision to leave Alice at the mercy of the infected comes back to literally bite him when she turns up bitten but not infected. Rightly pissed off, Alice makes the insane choice of infecting Don (see, toxic has two meanings), leading to the London safe zone being overrun by infected and destroyed by the army in an attempt at containment.
The film isn’t entirely devoid of light, though, and that is the loyalty of Don and Alice’s children to each other. Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (the gloriously named Mackintosh Muggleton) are the heart of a nearly heartless movie where named stars like Jeremy Renner and Rose Byrne are killed in horrible ways just so we know that no one is fucking about here.
28 Weeks Later will feel a little inessential as the middle part of a trilogy in which the creators were only executive producers, but it is one of the best action horror films of this century. Where does it rank against the other movies for you? Let us know in the comments!
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By Kevin Boyle
(header image via IMDB)
No But Listen 