Banging out a follow up to a successful horror film may be something of a safe bet financially speaking, but when the film in question is one of the most important and influential horror films of an entire decade, there’s a massive chance you’re setting yourself up to fail. Danny Boyle’s infected epic may have set up an infinite number of is it/isn’t it debates concerning whether or not it’s technically a zombie film, but one thing that wasn’t up for debate is that it was one of the most tense, haunting and downright vital genre movies of the 2000s.
However, slightly longer than 28 weeks later, came – 28 Weeks Later; a sequel that took a larger look at the aftermath of the apocalyptic plague after the titular passage of time had elapsed, but with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s influence greatly reduced, could this be an instance of a sequel equalling its stunning, first wave.
28 weeks after the Rage virus tore through Great Britain like Augustus Gloop through cake shop, the infected have all eventually succumbed to starvation and semblance of control has returned in the form of a settlement set up at Canary Wharf (formally the Isle of Dogs) by an American led NATO force. While the clear up of the surrounding areas starts, settlers are being allowed back into the country in stops and starts and two of newest arrivals are Tammy and Andy, a young brother and sister who were mercifilly out of the country when the outbreak first occured.
Waiting for them is their father, Don, who is anxious to see them again for quite a few conflicting reasons – you see, around fifteen days into the bloody epidemic, he and his wife were taking shelter in a boarded up pub on the outskirts of London, but after being discovered by the Infected, Don abandoned his horrified spouse to die and has been understandibly tormented by it ever since. After the initial joy at being reunited fades, both Tammy and Andy are distraught that they’ll never be allowed to return to their family home and after sneaking out to retrieve keepsakes, the two kids stumble upon something remarkable.
Taking shelter in their old attic is their mother, Alice, who not only is alive, but is miraculously unaffected by the rage virus despite displaying bloody great bite scars on her arm. However, while this causes understandable friction between their father who has now been caught in a terrible lie, the larger threat lies within Alice herself. You see, thanks to an examination by Scarlet, a U.S. Army Medical officer, she discovers that Alice’s blood is absolutely packed with the Rage virus despite showing none of the berzerker-like symptoms and realises that a vaccine may be possible.
However, this doesn’t stop at guilt ridden Don from breaking into the medical wing to see the wife he abandoned in an understandable moment of terrified weakness – but unbeknownst to him, his shame will collide with what lurks within her biology to bring utter disaster down upon them all…
It becomes apparent relatively early while watching 28 Weeks Later, that director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo simply can’t deliver and experience that’s anywhere near as elegant and near perfect experience as Boyle’s virtually perfect original – however, while the movie is as riddled with flaws and plot holes within its wildly ambitious story, extra points have to be given to hard damn hard the flick tries to compensate.
The difference between 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later is a perfect description of what makes a film and what makes a movie – while Boyle’s masterful and horribly relatable look at a zombie-esque dystopia has all the thought provoking points and cinematic flare of a film, Weeks is very much a movie; furiously ramping up the action, scale and gore usually at the expense of believability and characterization. The film constantly forces you to take leaps of faith, not only to set up how order has been tentatively restored to a ravaged country, but to ensure it gets torn apart once again. Similarly, the story seems to be unable to get the most of its central, family-based drama as the moment that pesky rage virus gets its second wind, everything that doesn’t involve running and screaming goes right out the window. However, if you can swallow forehead-slapping lapses in NATO security; a speedy rewriting of how the Rage virus works; some convoluted writing in order to push the plot along and a grasp of London’s geography that’s fanciful at best, 28 Weeks Later actually has a ton of great shit in it that side-steps the need to be perfect by bring legitimately fucking cool.
It all starts with the opening sequence that ends with the exactly kind of sweat pricking tension that the first film ended with as we see Don, Alice and a bunch of unsurprisingly doomed survivors get beset by a swarm of snarling infected as they storm their refuge. It’s a least a good as any sequence from the first film as we see Robert Carlyle’s terrified lead shockingly abandon his loving wife and sprint for his life in the face of certain death and its only the first of many set pieces that are guaranteed to have you clutching at your significant other (or – if you be single – pillow) in adrenaline fueled panic. It certainly helps that the movie overdoses hugely on John Murphy’s magnificently sinister “In The House – In A Heartbeat” and other scenes of absolute chaos push the franchise’s scale into the outlandish with an absolutely stunning scene where the second wave of infection starts ripping through NATO’s makeshift settlement and troops are ordered to open fire on anything that moves, whether their leaking gouts of blood from their gullet or not. Similarly, a scene where a helicopter pivots to have its rotors pulverise a clutch of infected into crimson guacamole seems more in line with a gruesome horror comedy rather than a sequel to one of the most thoughtful “zombie” movies ever made – but what it loses in subtlety, it certainly makes up in excitement.
However, one way the sequel does match up is with its skill at keen casting, bestowing early roles upon Jeremy Renner, Rose Byrne, Idris Elba and Imogen Poots. However, the crucial of the film lies with Robert Carlyle himself who, as the doomed Don, possibly gives the most over qualified zombie performance in cinema history as his mistaken attempt at atonement causes him to become infected and has him stalk his own kids throughout the entire second half of the film. While his more restrained version of an infected doesn’t admittedly line up with the others, who hurl themselves at their victims with frenzied hated, his more prowling version bristles with animalistic intelligence as the actor switches from prowling malevolence to drooling, crazed violence at the drop of a hat.
Yes, 28 Weeks Later is decidedly dumber than its predecessor – considering that infected blood is ridiculously contagious, no one seems to react accordingly when fucking covered in the stuff – but it’s bigger, meaner and incredibly crueler too with any of the cast fair game to suffering a hideous demise at any moment. As a result, the sequel certainly ain’t art, but thanks to its scope, vision and its readiness to spray gallons of gore at the slightest compunction, its genuinely nail-gnawing fun.
A sequel, in fact, that’s all the rage.
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