When we think of zombies, we think of walking corpses. Well, when British horror film 28 Days Later came out back in 2002, they spiced things up. Oh, and they brought on the spice. You can watch The Walking Dead or Night of the Living Dead and be scared of zombies slowly walking and eating people. But just imagine one critical change-up that would make them a thousand times more dangerous: make them run. Holy smokes, now we got ourselves a truly terrifying horror show. You can outrun a pack of zombies, but zombies that can run? Yeah, you better run for your life until your feet are bloody stumps. That’s the big change 28 Days Later made to the whole zombie schtick and they pulled it off in a bloody spectacular fashion. I mean, seriously, did you see that movie? Believe me, it’s freaking horrifying. Director Danny Boyle made 28 Days Later with the goal of reinvigorating the zombie genre. Again, he wanted to do this by making his zombies run. In fact, does that really make them zombies if they can run? Well, Danny Boyle doesn’t really consider the movie to be a zombie film, but it’s hard to not associate it with the zombie genre. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the 28 Days Later movies, it’s basically the same premise as most zombie movies. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic Great Britain, where most of the population has been infected with a highly contagious virus known only as “rage”. As the name implies, the virus turns the infected into aggressive, feral animals, a bit of a step up from you’re typical brain-dead zombies. What’s very scary about the infected humans from 28 Days Later is that their bite can almost instantly turn their victims into other infected humans.
So they can run fast and their bite can turn their victims into monsters very quickly. That’s a devastating global pandemic just waiting to happen. However, there is a critical weakness to these infected monsters as well. As dangerous as they are, they can starve after a while. Of course, you’d want to stay perfectly hidden until they do starve, but by the end of 28 Days Later, you’ll see starving infected clinging to dear-life. Now zombies can roam the world for a long while not feeding, that’s what makes them dangerous. 28 Days Later infected humans are still humans at their very core. They don’t need to be shot just in the head to kill them. Shoot them in the body and they’ll die. That’s an advantage for the survivors, but they just got to be fast, because once again, these infected humans run like they’re in a race for gold. Danny Boyle did his work well with 28 Days Later and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later in 2007. Now that was a good sequel, and it had the likes of Idris Elba and Jeremy Renner in it. Now what made 28 Weeks Later different than 28 Days Later is that it ended on a rather explosive cliffhanger. The final shot of the movie was a big group of infected running towards the Eiffel Tower in France. That is not a good sign. Having the infected run amok in the island of Great Britain is one thing, but Continental Europe? The world is in serious danger, especially with a virus that spreads quicker than wildfire. Now this sets it all up for a very scary horror trilogy. Yes, a thousand times yes, we need 28 Months Later.
It’s been a very long time since 28 Days Later came out and 28 Weeks Later was all the way back in 2007. With that duration in time, it’s easy to forget about these movies and go watch other horror movies that have kept up with time. I don’t think these movies should be forgotten because they do their job well. Horror movies are supposed to scare us and both movies scared us well. Who would’ve thought that running “zombies” would make all the difference? Oh, it’s a difference that made an impact and just seeing these infected animals run and flail their arms around is enough to give you nightmares. I think now is the time to resurrect this underrated franchise and complete the trilogy. If you like comic books, 28 Days Later does have a series. I’ve checked them out before and even seeing the infected on the pages is terrifying. Once again, I really want to see 28 Months Later. If Danny Boyle is up for it, which he is, then I’m confident this long-overdue trilogy will finally be completed. It’s not hard to think about what kind of story the third movie will tell. We last saw the infected running in the streets of Paris, so the infection of the rage virus has begun in France. How long will it take before it spreads to the rest of central Europe? I think we already know the answer. This virus will spread quickly and the rest of Europe will do whatever it takes to keep it contained. If they don’t, it can easily spread to the Middle East, then Africa, then Asia. And if it can reach that far, then it can certainly reach North and South America. I think that could take, oh, I don’t know, maybe 28 years later? That’s a story for another movie, possibly a fourth. Sounds like a stretch, but 28 Days Later brought something so rejuvenating for the horror genre and I think it needs to be completed.
And let’s think about what 28 Weeks Later set up. The two kids in the movie were implied to have the genetic make up in order to develop a cure. The only problem is, they were last seen in a helicopter flying across the English channel into France. And we all know where that helicopter ended up, but then again, we didn’t see their bodies. The boy was infected and carried the virus, but we don’t know what happened from there. Did he turn? Or did he inadvertently infect someone? Those are questions that will be answered in the sequel, but if those kids are somehow still alive, they can still be used for a cure. That’s a story I want to see, but I really want to see where that cliffhanger went. Like I said, Danny Boyle said he wants to work on it and even Cillian Murphy said he was interested in reprising his role. Oh, I am getting more excited for this trilogy the more I talk about it.The Walking Dead
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