31 Days of Halloween Horror - 28 Days Later

 28 Days Later

113 mins.

Dir. Danny Boyle

2002/UK

It seems only fitting that during these times we watch a pandemic movie and 28 Days later seems as fitting as any.  It's actually been quite awhile since I have seen this film.  While most of it I recalled, it was amazing to see the similarities between a flick from 18 years ago and the events happening today.  Another one of those instances of life imitating art.  While Covid-19 isn't as bad as the Rage virus, the way some people act, you would think it was.

A bunch of animal lovers break into a chimpanzee testing facility to expose the horrors of animal testing.  While there, they are spotted by a scientist who tells them the chimps are all infected with the Rage virus, it is in their blood.  One of the chimps is freed and immediately goes (pardon the pun) ape shit and kills an activist who in turn gets Rage blood in her mouth or eye or any orifice really and goes bananas (sorry again) and attacks everyone else.  And thus the virus spreads...

Meanwhile 28 days later a car accident patient wakes up in a hospital only to find the entire world has gone to shit.  London is abandoned, no government, no law, no electricity, no phones.  Just rage infected people looking for someone to kill and a few survivors looking to...well, survive.  Our hospital patient Jimmy hooks up with some of the survivors and ultimately follows a radio signal to a military base only to find out all it really is, is what's left of an army unit holed up in a mansion looking to restart populating humanity.

Looking back now on this film, there are not only similarities with real life, but also with The Walking Dead which expanded upon some of these concepts.  As a movie, I found 28 Days Later to drag a little in pacing.  There are definitely some tense scenes, like thinking you are finding salvation in your own home or changing a tire in a tunnel, but once you get to the military base and beyond I feel like, while it was more action packed at this point, the story slowed down and that could very well be because it was treading familiar territory.  Not familiar at the time when this flick was released, but what has come after.

So upon revisiting 28 Days Later, I still liked it, but perhaps not as much as the first time I saw it.  Not sure how much rewatchability this one has.  If they had only worn their masks, maybe this whole thing could have been avoided.