28 Days Later... (2002)

I want something easy to write about, I thought yesterday, as I was flicking through the list of movies available to me. Monday blogs are generally fairly briskly-written, if only so I can get them done, go to work for the morning and then come home and catch up on any sleep I might have missed. I had plenty of options, too - nice, smart family movies that I knew inside out, that would definitely entertain me and wouldn't require too much intellectual effort.

Then, as I checked the list again, I realized I'd been wrong. No, I thought, I want something beautiful. 

I'd just registered the presence of 28 Days Later... , Danny Boyle's brutal, lyrical not-quite-zombie thriller, and I knew nothing else would do.

The first time I saw the in its entirety, several years had passed since its original release, but I already knew certain scenes practically by heart. Well, one scene, in any case, the one where cycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakens in bed in a deserted hospital and walks out onto the streets of an utterly empty London, while East Hastings by Godspeed, You Black Emperor! slowly builds from quiet menace to the musical equivalent of a full-on outburst of grief. We see Blackfriars Bridge devoid of traffic barring an upturned bus, and the giant Piccadilly Circus screens blank like obsolete televisions, before the camera swoops in to linger on the hoardings around Eros covered with thousands of desperate handwritten messages from people who've lost their nearest and dearest but have to believe that they've simply mislaid them instead.

It's one of the most striking openings in cinematic history, and I viewed it repeatedly, wishing I had the courage to view the film in its entirety. 

Then, finally, the day came when it just felt right - I knew I could cope with the gore and the jump scares if it meant I could see the story attached to that single, glorious vignette.

The good

Still not sure this isn't Boyle's finest achievement. For me, it's the film of his where everything seemed to fall into place - the cinematography, the music, Alex Garland's superior scriptwriting and storytelling all combine to create something haunting and deeply intense.

It was interesting yesterday, too, to watch it after so recently having seen Zombieland, a very similar film in theme if not in tone, and to note all the places where Zombieland missteps and 28 Days... gets it so very, very right. Sure, the former is a comedy, but the latter has notes of humour, and they're all the more precious for being set within such a harrowing environment. Boyle's zombies aren't video-game enemies to be creatively exploded, they're real people, and he doesn't allow us or the protagonists to forget this for so much as a second. It helps, of course, that we're given a prologue that explains explicitly how the crisis begins; it's also useful that the the time taken from infection to transformation is only a matter of a handful of seconds. Sometimes only the very narrowest of margins separate us from the monsters, it suggests, a message hammered home during a few moments in the final act when Naomie Harris' Selena genuinely can't tell a rage and adrenaline-fuelled Jim from her undead pursuers.

Except that they're not undead, not technically; they're victims of a virus and very much alive. They move at lighting speed and with ruthless intent, utterly implacable. One of the final scenes, however, shows the logical consequence of this, as supplies of their natural prey run out and several are seen, lying by the roadside, emaciated, slowly starving to death. It's a powerful image, but then, this is a very powerful piece of cinema.

The bad

I honestly don't think there's a lot wrong with this one. 

Roger Ebert did argue that a bleaker ending might have been a braver one, and I think I can sort of see it. That said, the relatively upbeat final scenes provide some nice emotional catharsis after quite a gruelling couple of hours. Having asked us to empathise with our protagonists (and in some cases, literally view the action through their eyes), the optimistic payoff suggests faith not only in their future, but in the future of humanity itself. It's a good message, and I suspect it's probably also good business to ensure audiences don't leave the multiplex feeling too emotionally drained.

The verdict

Not the easiest or most relaxing watch out there, but definitely one of the most beautiful. 28 Days Later offers the gore and jump shocks you'd expect, yes, but underlying the flash is a sense of dread not so much of some unseen menace, but of the monster that lurks within us all.