I was worried for a moment there wouldn’t be a zombie movie this year. *Phew* 28 Years Later puts my mind at ease. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have once again teamed up to tell us what happens when you let zombies marinate for a while. It’s all the Rage.
First off, I’m skeptical. I don’t think zombies have a good shelf life. I mean, if all you care about is eating human flesh, I gotta believe that’s a recipe for annihilation. Humans are durable and adaptable precisely because of the big brain thing. The Rage virus takes the thinking part away – well, most of it, at least. You have these human creatures who go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs every time there’s a non-Rage human anywhere near … and that’s all these fuckers care about. Clothing, housing, food? Those are basics. What about medical care? It’s not like zombies have a PPO – although this is England, so I’m pretty sure they still have better health care than the United States.
But I digress.
It is 28 years after the Rage virus raged, turning the world into the worst game of tag ever. Many of the rage monsters still survive (how?) and they’ve bottled up a community of very tribal humans on the island of Lindisfarne. Ah, but at low tide, it’s not an island. When the sea retreats, a causeway appears. Well, wiki calls it a causeway; I like to think of it as an isthmus – because when else am I going to get to use the word “isthmus,” huh? Anyhoo, the normies have set up a post to combat the ragers if they should ever find their way across.
In the world’s most stupid ritual, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) – and, believe me, Jamie, this move does not Kick Ass – has agreed to take his 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams) across the isthmus for a coming-of-age hunting ritual among the zombies. Is the kid supposed to hunt the zombies?! Did I mention this is stupid? Hoo-boy, is this ever stupid. But, we do learn a few things like 1) There is an alpha rager,
who is clearly smarter than the rest. How does that work? 2) Hey, the causeway is pretty well defended.
Equally stupid is the part where Spike gets pissed at Jamie and decides to take his mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), over to Zombieland instead of dear-old-dad. There’s at least at better reason there – Isla has a chronic disorder and they have reason to believe there’s a doctor right in the heart of the zombies. Why does this make sense to anybody?
Ok, love the set-up here. Geographic isolation is the key to all good horror, as we know. But the choices made by the characters do not thrill me. There is decent horror here – some tense thrills and some ugly visuals; gee, what more do you guys want? I call it good, definitely somewhere between “meh” and “awesome.” You’ll probably find the same is true for you. And now we all get to wait for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the exciting 28 Years Later spinoff.
There was once a pre-teen named Spike
Whose dystopia required a hike
His ritual was clean
He’s a “man” now, I mean
Now you can just stay home settled, right? Psych!
Rated R, 115 Minutes
Director: Danny Boyle
Writer: Alex Garland
Genre: Our screwed future
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Zombie fans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: How do you feel about a spire o’ skulls?
