28 Days Later (2002)

 

The project of reviewing old magazine before giving them away continues with Diabolique Magazine Issue #18 Nov/Dec 2013 The Holiday Issue. Always packed with great writing this issue focuses on Apocalyptic Cinema and Literature, so if this is a subject you are interested in and want to receive this issue when I finish with it, let me know and it could be yours. The second article in this issue under the heading "The Devil Made Watch It: Movies that shook the public and changed genre cinema" was written by Alexandra West who you can listen to on the podcast The Faculty of Horror where she teams up with the Editor and Cheif of Rue Morgue Magazine Andrea Subisatti to cover horror and genre film with a depth you don't get on many other podcasts. I am a patron of this particular podcast and recommend it to you with enthusiasm. In the article the subject is the film 28 Days Later by Danny Boyle. She looks at the film through the lense of the fears stemming from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and how it retextualized the zombie genre. Today I suppose you could look at it in a very different way because of the 2020 global pandemic. It would be very interesting to hear Alenadra take on it in light of that latest human catastrophy, or what new film again retextualizes the new fears that came form the pandemic.

 

28 Days later begins in chaos as news reels show us the breakdown of society violence and disorder which is part of an experiment on a chimpanzee who is forced to watch the violence. A foreshadowing of what is to come. What is happening around him is a group of animal rights activist are coming to the lab to free the animals who are being tortured in various ways. It's a great scene where even though a scientist begs the activists to not release the infected Chimps they choose to do it anyway with the most dire of consequences. Then it is 28 days later and Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes in a hospital bed alone in an empty hospital, everywhere London looks abandoned, Jim walks the streets not seeing another person until he does and the rage virus is displayed in it's terrifying glory. Much like the Omega Man from my last post with the deserted shots of Los Angeles, director Danny Boyle gives us an empty London, a hopeless place for a man alone. Unlike the Omega Man where Charlton Heston plays God and even dies as the great sacrifice so humanity can live on, this film does the opposite. As Alexandra West points out in her writing comparing 28 Days to other zombie films where religion plays a part this film has a severe lack of framing religion as a hope. Omega man also uses science but wraps it in the hubris of the main character. That hubris in 28 Days Later is void as West points out.

Jim meets Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley) during his first encounter with the infected and is quickly brought up to speed on the sudden and violent end to society. I remember those first weeks of the 2020 pandemic and how strange and eerie it was to be on streets with literally no activity on them. Watching the survivors in this film now fits that framework the comparisons to the 1971 The Omega Man could go on and on within the pandemic frame.  It's biological warfare angle and the experiments being performed on the chimps that release the rage virus are on the same street if not in the same house. The desperate survival mode of non infected in both films drives home how fragile our grasp on civility really is. The hope of a cure not only drive the two films but also drove our own society while we waited for a Covid vaccine. I always critiqued the world response to Covid and how we almost lost our civility as our failed goverment joined conspiracy theorist in their delusions and was willing to to let over a million people die through its mismanagement of the crisis. Imagine if the Covid virus was just 10% more effective at killing those who contracted it? What would have been our fate then. Many like my family and I were lucky to live in a smaller town, 20k and have ample ability to not only live but outdoor space and work that was remote.

What if we were in The Omega Man or 28 Days Later and the solution was to find a cure on our own or need to cross a vast city looking for a safe place to try to live as Jim, Selena, Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Hannah (Megan Burns) attempt. They seek out a call from the country side by a person promising an infection free zone. That trust in a radio signal is worth all four characters risking their lives and they do not even know if  the source of the message is still valid. The closest I came was needing to travel from Boston to Florida during the pandemic, knowing there was no vaccine but needed to visit my dying Mother (cancer not Covid). I remember the fear I had masked on the plane hoping not to contract this desease which as a heavy older man would have a good chance of killing me. In Massachusetts we were being so careful, masking and limiting face to face interactions and the death rate was still high so it was surreal to be on a plane filled with people. I was trusting that people were not travelling sick that we were all doing what was necessary to keep others safe. In 28 Days Later there is a trust that is given to the military group that takes the survivors in. Do they really have a system that protects against the rage virus? People in the film learn that not everyone was sincerely attempting survival with the welfare of all in mind as I did in FL where life amoung most people was going on as normal, people shopping going to restaurants gathering in groups while the rest of the country was putting measures in place to try to slow the spread..

Redefining these films through this new lense is quite an interesting exercise. We are reminded that their is a balance between trust and caution. The zombie genre was again recontextualized except the societal fears of 9/11 were replace with those of the pandemic. Way more on the nose! What movies have come along since 2013 that have done the same thing 28 Days Later or The Omega Man to shift our perspective? Alexandra West does an excellent job in her article but I wonder how she would rewrite it today after experiencing 2020.

So if you are interested in a magazine with this content, read updates here soresportmovies.blogspot.com, or on Letterboxd.com to learn how my magazine giveaway is going but follow me on Letterboxd if you want to read my movie reviews and comment on the films. I still have a mail connected to my blog movies@edhovey.com where you can write me or comment on blog entries.

My Letterboxd.com handle is @Hovey1127, when I am done with the Issue of the magazine I will offer it up and we can work out the details of me getting it to you. I am not really looking for money just someone who also would love to read it. If no one wants it well it will probably end up on a magazine rack at the library or something.

Chatting with me is difficult, I have stopped my social media account years ago because time… it’s ticking at my age and I would rather spend it doing other things like this for example. Or chatting with my friends at the Zombiegrrlz.com podcasts on their discord. I am a fan of the podcasts they publish The More Deadly Podcast and the Zombiegrrlz podcast and as a Patron for very little $ I get access to the discord. So if you want to good horror content and a great horror community check them out.You can also find me on the Here's Johnny Podcast and  Faculty of Horror Podcast discords. Look them up join my online friends for some good conversations.