#28 days zombie movie

Even the chained-up black guy who is supposed to be starving to death doesn’t eat his kills when he gets loose. It’s interesting that they went the way of providing a quasi-medical explanation for having zombies but then didn’t make use of the obvious justification for cannibalism (they need to eat something). there’s not really a good logical reason in storytelling terms, it’s just because it feels more interesting and hopefully that’s a legitimate reason.” Hm. It’s like an aesthetic decision, I suppose.

Where are all the bodies? According to Garland it was “sort of atmosphere and surrealism over plot requirements really. Ah, but Boyle explains in the commentary that they’ve put “all” the cars in the tunnel! Apparently there was a “huge” pile-up that ate all of the cars in England! Where are all the guns? There are none because it’s England! They don’t have guns! But where are all the cars? There’s still gas around, even at the gas stations (there must be because we see one blow up). Garland: “We took lots of liberties with the things we set up for ourselves.” On the commentary Boyle makes an interesting point when he says “we had lots of rules for the infected which we basically thought were terribly important and then ignored whenever we wanted” (like the Infected not coming out as much during the day). As the business with the different endings suggests, they were just making it up as they went along. I guess somebody thought it was a good idea at the time. And as for how Frank gets infected with the Rage virus, well. We are introduced to Frank and Hannah only because they’ve got lights blinking in their apartment window. In fairness, it’s the scariest scene in the movie. Boyle recognized that the tunnel scene was a horror cliché (down to them getting a flat tire), but was of the opinion that you must never be afraid of clichés because they’re very enjoyable. what the hell, why not? And so there you have another scary scene courtesy of everyone behaving like idiots. Of course everyone agrees it’s an idiotic idea to try to go through the tunnel (which would in fact be impossible to get through even with a more formidable vehicle than the cab they’re in). But by far the stupidest episode is the tunnel scene.

More stupidity: Why does Jim go into the restaurant, alone, at the gas bar? Because, while it’s true they already have food, they don’t have any cheeseburgers! OK, there’s another scary scene added to the plot. the stories are probably too long, and he doesn’t want to be bothered. Sure they might help him find out what’s happening but. I also like how Jim just glances at the headlines of the newspapers about the outbreak of the plague and then tosses them aside. So why don’t these survivors ride bikes around town? Wouldn’t that make more sense? By the way, Jim was a bike courier before the Rage struck. So everyone goes off together so we can have that little episode play out. What does Jim want to do when he’s just been chased through deserted London by bloodthirsty maniacs and then been told what’s going on? Why, go see his mum and dad of course! No point telling him that this is a very bad idea, because you see he just has to do it. Things happen either by random accident or because the characters behave like total morons. You can dress it up as much as you want, but this is a pure idiot plot.

#28 days zombie movie

It means - if you can believe it (and you should believe it, as remarkable as it seems, because it does happen) - that they got this project rolling without any idea what movie they were going to end up making. Now let me say this: When a movie has three endings, it has none. The DVD comes with three - count ’em three! - “alternate endings.” One of these is quite radically different, without any of the business with the military base out in the country. In fact, it has a very strong introduction, with Jim wandering the empty streets of London. When the movie came out I remember the widespread opinion “on the street” was that it started off well and had a terrible ending. Which begins with the wretched screenplay by Alex Garland. What I hated about it was the sheer stupidity and waste. That doesn’t mean it’s all bad, because hating a movie means something different than thinking it simply sucks.