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You need to watch the best zombie thriller of the century on HBO Max ASAP

Zombies aren’t the only threat when the world ends.

by Robin Bea
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
Fox Searchlight Pictures

Zombies are some of the most terrifying movie monsters because they’re so close to us. That makes them potent vehicles for allegory and satire going back to 1968’s breakout Night of the Living Dead.

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Any good zombie movie plays on the thin line between human and monster, and you only have until Halloween to watch the one that does it best.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

28 Days Later opens with scenes of horrific violence (a man being hanged by a crowd, mount-mounted cops beating protestors).

These aren’t the results of a zombie outbreak

They’re the run-of-the-mill horror of supposedly still functioning human civilization.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Fox Searchlight Pictures

An extremely economical opening sets up the plot. The attempt to “cure” humanity’s violent impulses in a British lab unleashes what comes to be known as the Rage Virus.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Anyone inflicted with Rage (marked by their red eyes) has an irrepressible desire to kill. It doesn’t take long for all of England, where the film is set, to collapse.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

One of 28 Days Later’s protagonists, Jim, awakens alone in a hospital, oblivious to how the world has fallen apart during his stay.

The film’s early scenes are almost peaceful as Jim wanders through eerily empty London streets looking for any sign of life before meeting fellow survivor Selena.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Fox Searchlight Pictures

To get these impressive shots of the city without a soul in sight, 28 Days Later’s crew shot just after dawn for minutes at a time, using digital video instead of bulkier film cameras to speed up the process.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

After Selena and Jim meet father and daughter Frank and Hannah, the group heads for a military outpost that’s sending a recorded message out to gather survivors.

28 Days Later maintains its slow pace throughout. Action scenes are chaotic and terrifying when they appear, usually bookended by long stretches of peace and quiet.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Fox Searchlight Pictures

One of those chiller scenes shows an extended shopping trip with an upbeat soundtrack as the group stocks up on supplies.

The world’s on fire

but they still need whatever momentary joy they can find to keep going. The sentiment felt as relatable on release in 2002 as it does 20 years later.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

The quietness of 28 Days Later makes it action feel even more frantic. Though its pace resembles older zombie movies like Night of the Living Dead, the zombies of 28 Days Later aren’t shambling corpses.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Fox Searchlight Pictures

The Rage Virus doesn’t wait until its victims die to take hold. They’re living people, and filmmakers cast athletes to portray its highly mobile zombies.

Studio Canal

Maybe because it set itself so far apart from its inspirations, 28 Days Later helped kick off a revival of zombie horror, along with the equally subversive Shaun of the Dead a few years later.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Despite that — and writer Alex Garland taking inspiration from Resident Evil — he and director Danny Boyle say 28 Days Later is about the apocalypse, not about zombies.

Even running for their lives isn’t enough to numb the survivors’ sense of grief and isolation for outliving the world.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

Fox Searchlight Pictures

The infected fall out of focus in 28 Days Later’s third act, which is more concerned with the horror people and the artificial power structures we build can inflict on others.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

28 Days Later is a tense, brutal horror film, and an equally effective piece of political allegory, where human cruelty is as terrifying as any movie monster.

Fox Searchlight Pictures/HBO Max

28 Days Later leaves HBO Max on October 31, 2022.

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