28 Weeks Later
DIR: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo • WRI: Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Jesús Olmo • PROD: Enrique López Lavigne, Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich • DOP: Enrique Chediak • ED: Chris Gill • DES: Mark Tildesley • CAST: Catherine McCormack, Robert Carlyle, Harold Perrineau, Rose Byrne

28 Weeks Later is Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s excellent follow-up to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s Romero-inspired 28 Days Later.

It all begins at a derelict house somewhere in the English countryside with husband and wife Don (Robert Carlyle) and Alice (Catherine McCormack) sheltering from the infected with a family of survivors. In a quaint diffused-light gothic setting, folk gather around a dinner table talking in a jovial but disconcertingly detached manner – that is until a small boy fleeing the infected starts banging on their door. Reluctant at first to allow the child access to the house, Don finally relents after much goading by Alice. But she doesn’t realise that the boy has led the infected straight to them. What follows is a ferocious attack on the house, which leaves most dead or infected. Don ends up leaving his wife to the vicious horde while he makes his getaway.

Six months later, the American military have decided to colonize London with the survivors of the original attack after the rage virus decimated Britain. Don is reunited with the children he had the good sense to send on a school vacation (Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton), failing to tell them about his own cowardice and failure to save the children’s mother. A colony on the Isle of Dogs looks promising, as news that the infected have starved to death spreads. There hasn’t been a record of infection in months, although this changes when the children, missing their mother, return to their old house to discover that Alice is in fact very much alive.

Military Health officer Scarlet (Rose Byrne) discovers that Alice is carrying the virus but hasn’t developed symptoms because of a rare genetic abnormality. Don, feeling guilty, decides to pay a visit to his wife, which leads to a kiss and Don’s infection, starting off the entire bloody fiasco again.

28 Days Later was a grainy, exhausting, terrifying thriller that posed a ‘what if?’ question that was not that far off plausible. 28 Weeks Later explores similar territory but on a broader scale with a larger budget, an intelligent plot with political undertones examining how far people are prepared to go to survive – including extreme acts of human horror. It also boasts stunning, disquieting cinematography of a deserted London.

There has been a spate of zombie films in the last few years (Resident Evil, Land of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead) but none quite as smart and scary as 28 Weeks Later. For those who didn’t enjoy the sombre, slow pace of the original film, they will be surprised to hear this is much faster in pace and never once lets up. Never predictable, you never know who will live and who will die.

The complaints I have with this film are that Catherine McCormick is underused, Robert Carlyle spends most of his screen time red-eyed and foaming at the mouth, Rose Byrne is not convincing at all, and you never learn what became of Jim and Selena from 28 Days Later. But this is one scary and sad film – and altogether too short. I can’t wait for 28 Months Later.

Alan Kelly

Rated 16 (see IFCO website for details)
28 Weeks Later is released on 11th May 2007.
28 Weeks Later – Official website