The following text refers to the theatrical release

28 Days Later

(Danny Boyle;2003)

(Fox Searchlight)

A group of crazed PETA-like animal rights zealots storm an animal research facility and effectively kill the world by releasing chimpanzees infected with a strange ailment called “Rage”. 28 days later a man wakes up in hospital to find that he’s all alone in London except for a crazed infected populous. He soon hooks up with some uninfected people like himself and their fight for survival begins.

Despite being billed as such, this is NOT a zombie film. The infected people sprint after people, they don’t eat their victims, and the dead don’t come back to life in any way, shape or form. The hype engine was shifted into overdrive with this release as far as I’m concerned. Not to say that it wasn’t an enjoyable film, just that it’s misrepresented in the promotional material. Not to mention that the trailer spoils many of what would have been some decent “shock” scenes. As a standalone film, it’s not bad. Well shot, decent acting, appropriate atmosphere at times. There’s very little gore to speak of, and all of the violent scenes have had the film sped up so most (if not all) of them are just a hard to follow blur. No T&A, but you do have to see the main protagonist naked quite a bit. Yippee. The film borrows liberally from Romero’s Dead trilogy, but doesn’t pull it off nearly as well. Some people are going to love it, but most seasoned horror fans are going to find it redundant, derivative, and a disappointment. Scariest film since The Exorcist? I beg to differ.

Overall Score: 2.5

(Rating scale is out of 5, with 1 being the worst and 5 the best)