Review of 28 Days Later

With endless love, we left you sleeping. Now we're sleeping with you. Don't wake up.

For the first few scenes of the film, I knew this film was going to be part of my favorite zombie films. I loved the way it didn't meet other zombie film storylines; the origins of the virus was different, and even the look and feel of the zombies were different as well. They reminded me a LOT of Left 4 Dead zombies - they weren't shuffling or slow, they could definitely rush at you and bite a chunk of your flesh if you didn't blast their brains to pieces. Plus the film's atmosphere... you could definitely feel the terror of being one of the few survivors in a world plagued with endless scores of undead.
The film begins when a group of animal cruelty activists break into a top secret facility with the aim of freeing monkeys which they believe have been abused for the sake of research. Before they can do so, a scientist catches them and frantically warns them not to free the monkeys, since these have been injected with a virus which borders on extreme Rage and can be passed on through a bite, saliva, or any form of physical contact which involves wounds. The activists ignore the warnings of the scientist and release one monkey, which immediately jumps on a female activist and mauls her neck. Within seconds, she has turned into the first Infected, and the film cuts to Jim (Murphy), who awakes in a hospital 28 days after the incident. He goes out of the hospital and searches London for any signs of life. All he sees are rubbish and abandoned vehicles. At some point, he picks up wads of cash, but naturally, he does not know that he won't be needing it anymore. While exploring a church, he stumbles upon a group of Infected, who promptly chase him. A few seconds away from certain death, he is rescued by Selena (Harris) and Mark (Huntley). They take him to their hideout and explain what happened. Jim makes up his mind to see his parents, ignoring Selena and Mark's warnings that they may be dead by now. When they reach Jim's house, they find his parents dead in bed from an overdose of sleeping pills. During the night they are attacked by two of Jim's Infected neighbors, and Mark is wounded. In a flash, Selena hacks Mark to death, explaining to Jim that it takes 10-20 seconds to kill a person who has been wounded by an Infected before they transform. They continue on their way, and in the process, they meet Frank (Gleeson) and Hannah (Burns), a father-daughter team who say that there is a military outpost where they can find a cure for the infection. The four decide to travel together, but once they reach the camp, they learn that the so-called cure is to impregnate all human women in order to repopulate the Earth.
A definite original, although I did have an issue with the scene where Frank shows Jim the rooftop of the building where he and his daughter were living in. Sure, it had a lot of plastic containers in order to catch rainwater, but I spotted 3 laundry baskets. With holes. How in Zeus' lightning bolt are they going to catch water with THAT? That aside, this film is definitely one everyone should see. ;)