Just a little bit scary

28 Days Later
Stars: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns. Rated MA
Reviewer: PTE Simone Heyer

Cillian Murphy (Jim) searches the deserted streets of London in the so-called fear-fest 28 Days Later

Prepare to grip your seat with terror, prepare to grab the person beside you with fright (unless they avoid your grasp), prepare to continuously gnaw your giant popcorn, 28 Days Later is a bit of a fear-fest, but it's nowhere near what it was talked up to be.

Of course, all that talk had some impact, and we were ready to jump and be very afraid, but the whole thing quieted down from down-right terrifying to a little scary.

The story is that some do-good animal rights activists (ARA) try to release some chimps from a test facility. While they're opening the cages, a stroppy scientist is yelling "don't release them, they have a virus ... they're infected with hate".

This isn't enough to slow down the ARA, who fling open the cage doors only to be mauled by said chimps. One ARA activist's eyes go red - she starts projectile vomiting blood and emitting a loud screech, before she begins to attack the other humans.

From there, the virus makes its way around the world - or maybe just the UK, but that's the secret.

That's when bike courier, Jim (Murphy), wakes up in hospital, rigged up to all sorts of machines, but completely alone.

He robs some snack machines and a fetching doctor's robe, and takes to the streets looking for more people - and finds none.

There's a lot of the whole deserted London-look, newspapers flying about in the wind, abandoned vehicles, looted vending machines, which nicely sets the scene.

As darkness falls, Jim is set upon by screeching zombie-type humans with the nasty red-eye/projectile vomiting thing and two humans wielding blow torches come out of cover to rescue him. They later tell him that neither will hesitate to kill him if he is infected.

The story is really about avoiding the zombies and setting about making a new life for the trio, which eventually becomes a couple. They find more uninfected people and decide to travel to Manchester where there is an Army base, transmitting rescue messages.

After all sorts of adventure, the troop find their way to the apparent safety of the soldiers. Although only 28 or so days after the infection has killed everyone, the boys are more than up for it, and plan to start a new community with Selena (Harris) and Hannah (Burns). This seems too much to bear for Jim, so he starts a rampage, bringing in some zombies to sort the soldiers out.

Jim has a feeling the rest of the world is going on as normal, so the next plan is to wait out the zombies, until they all die of starvation.

Quite a good movie, something a bit different.

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