Watching 28 Weeks Later I realised why its the only 'zombie' genre movie that actually disturbs me- its the whole six seconds concept. By that I mean when you get bitten by (or puked on, or in the case of this movie, kiss) a zombie and the infection hits your bloodstream, you have about 6 seconds of writhing, vomiting and if your really energetic, head banging against a wall or floor until you become truly zombiefied. Thats not a lot of time to tie up your personal affairs, or to tell the people around you you love them (or scream at them to RUN THE HELL AWAY).
You think cramming an Oscar acceptance speech into the 30 seconds they give you at the acadamy awards podium is tough, with 6 seconds to go before the virus penetrates the blood/brain barrier, you just have about enough time to get the words 'OH MY GOD' out before Bam!- Your eyes go red, you dribble insanely, and feast upon your own family. Its different from the vampire or werewolf movie genre, where there is usually a few minutes or hours to go before you 'turn', usually allowing for some thrilling heroics and poetic good byes or to find a cure.
That and the fact that these zombie can RUN is what makes this franchise different,and its a franchise now with 28 Months later pretty inevitable, though my brother had the idea that a better sequel concept would be a prequel called 24 Hours later which would take viewers back to the original outbreak, which started with the monkeys. Then Jack Bauer turns up and wastes everyone.
There was something unintentionally funny about this film though- what I can only call the cinematographic trick of 'zombie vision'. At one point after the character of Don (Robert Carlyle, about time he became a zombie) becomes infected, the camera angle changes to a fixed steadicam shot over his left shoulder as he runs around feasting on victims, becoming more and more covered in blood/saliva/gloop. Its just kind of funny, like zombie reality TV.
In watching this film my brother and I kind of broke the 4th wall in a weird metaphysical way. This film is set on the Isle of Dogs near to where I live and features the Docklands Light Rail DLR running through Crossharbour to Canary Wharf amongst other locations. To watch this movie my brother and I went to the Isle of Dogs Cineworld multiplex through Crossharbour and Canary Wharf.........on the DLR. It didn't feel quite the same. Good to know though that even a zombie outbreak can't stop those little red trains.
O