Image courtesy of impawards.com
Director:
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Cast:
Catherine McCormack……….Alice
Robert Carlyle……….Don
Amanda Walker……….Sally
Shahid Ahmed……….Jacob
Garfield Morgan……….Geoff
Emily Beecham……….Karen
Jeremy Renner……….Doyle
Harold Perrineau……….Flynn
Rose Byrne……….Scarlet
Imogen Poots……….Tammy
Mackintosh Muggleton……….Andy
Idris Elba……….Stone
Now that zombies can run, should people be more afraid of them? Like any good zombie movie 28 Weeks Later emphasizes that people should most fear that which zombies represent. At their core, zombie movies consistently exploit mankind’s most common paranoia: fear of oneself both internally and externally. Fear is like sickness, but fear spreads more quickly.
Like a virus, the fear of 28 Weeks Later begins within Robert Carlyle’s troubled husband and father, Don, before it becomes a more global ailment. Don leaves his wife for dead when zombies attack their farm turned survivor bunker. The guilt festers inside him even when an American instituted repopulation of London reunites Don with his children. The perspective shifts to more macro concerns as the audience is also introduced to a handful of story relevant American soldiers.
Don’s children are inextricably intertwined with the chief of the US medical staff (Rose Byrne) when she suspects Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) has a genetic immunity to the zombie virus that may lead to a cure. It seems the gene has been passed on from his mother (Catherine McCormack) who the children find still alive upon a visit to their old home. The twist is that Andy and his mother can both carry the virus but remain unaffected by it.
Naturally, not enough precaution is taken given that knowledge and the virus spreads again. The US army inserts itself into the situation, and suddenly 28 Weeks Later betrays its true agenda: a critique of the government, American or otherwise. As viewers might expect, the newly implemented, foolproof system falls apart and instinct sets in when following orders fails. Those who fall in line are to be feared just as much as the zombies themselves.
The metaphor remains one of cinema’s most simplistic, and thus has great ease stirring up discomfort in an audience. The signature handheld camera work doesn’t hurt either. The immediacy of it all hides the film’s other flaws quite well. In truth, the characters do not have much depth, but we anxiously hope they get out alive anyway. Perhaps that is because the film feels incredibly real, and each character (regardless of depth) responds in similar fashion to how we would expect ourselves to react.
Or perhaps we root for the survivors because 28 Weeks Later is damn scary and unsettlingly bleak. If mankind cannot protect itself on a small scale, then what happens when that which we fear escapes from the walls we put around it? What happens 28 months later, or 28 years later? Zombie movies would lead one to believe that no matter how much time is given, the fate of humanity is inevitable. We will perish at the hands of the zombies we create; whether they are real or metaphorical is irrelevant.
