Title: 28 Days Later

Year Released/Rating: 2002 R

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston

Directed By: Danny Boyle

Written By: Alex Garland

Genre: Horror

Star Rating: 5/5 stars

Where I Got It: I own it

Trivia:

For the London scenes, police would close the roads at 4am, and filming would begin immediately. After 1 hour, the police would reopen the roads. The producers correctly predicted that asking drivers (including clubbers headed home) to either wait for up to an hour or find another route might make some of them angry. They got several extremely attractive young women (including Danny Boyle's daughter) to make the necessary requests, and the drivers responded quite amicably to them.
The hospital in the film is a real day hospital, open only during the week. The trust managers of the hospital hire out the building to filmmakers for weekends, and the productions pay the hospital directly, meaning the money from filming goes directly to the hospital's trust fund.
Christopher Eccleston and the other soldiers in the film did a three-day training program with real soldiers to help them learn how to carry themselves believably.
Jim, Selena, Mark, Frank, and Hannah's surnames are never revealed during the film or in the end credits. Likewise, Jim's parents names are never revealed.
The 'design' for the symptoms of Rage was based on Ebola, which is communicable in all primates (including humans), and is transmitted through the blood. Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever which leads to a rash, red eyes and both internal and external bleeding. Indeed, in 28 Days Later: The Aftermath (a graphic novel set between 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, it is explained that the Ebola virus was being used by the scientists as a carrier for the inhibitor which mutated into Rage.
The film was shot almost entirely in sequence; only pickups and a few reshoots were shot out of sequence.

Summary: Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary.

Review:

I'm watching this pair of movies with the understanding that the infected are really zombies. It's a bit more complicated than that, but I prefer to think of the movies as an offshoot of the zombie genre. That being said, I really do enjoy these movies. We have tons of gore, but some really great characters. Jim and Selena are perfection. And Major West is a great villan. He appears as salvation and then things turn south. The movie has some great gotcha moments. But the scariest sequence is in the tunnel. Creeps me out! I like that we get an ambiguous but possibly happy ending. It's a different sort of tale. Definitely one to watch.

Best Bits:

[Hannah hits Jim over the head with a bottle] Selena: Hannah, it's OK. He's not infected. Hannah: But I thought he was biting you. Jim: Kissing. I was kissing her. Are you stoned? Selena: It's a long story.
Jim: And then I wake up today in hospital. I wake up, and I'm... I'm hallucinating or I'm... Mark: What's your name? Jim: Jim. Mark: I'm Mark. This is Selena. OK, Jim. I've got some bad news.
Jim: World's worst place to get a flat, huh? Frank: Agreed. I think we better do this quick?
Mark: A man walks into a bar with a giraffe. They both get pissed. The giraffe falls over. The man goes to leave and the bartender says, "Oi. You can't leave that lyin' there." And the man says, "No. It's not a lion. It's a giraffe." [Jim doesn't respond] Mark: Completely humorless.
Jim: Oh, great. Valium. Not only will we be able to go to sleep, if we get attacked in the middle of the night, we won't even care.
[finding a crate of fresh apples in a pile of rotting produce] Frank: Mmmmmm... Irradiated!