Product Description

Hailed as the most frightening film since The Exorcist, acclaimed Director Danny Boyle's visionary take on zombie horror "isn't just scary…it's absolutely terrifying" (Access Hollywood).

An infirmary patient awakens from a coma to an empty room…in a vacant hospital…in a deserted city. A powerful virus, which locks victims into a permanent state of murderous rage, has transformed the world around him into a seemingly desolate wasteland. Now a handful of survivors must fight to stay alive, unaware that the worst is yet to come…

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2702 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-10-21
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 113 minutes

Amazon.com
The director/producer team that created Trainspotting turn their dynamic cinematic imaginations to the classic science fiction scenario of the last people on Earth. Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma to find London deserted--until he runs into a mob of crazed plague victims. He gradually finds other still-human survivors (including Naomie Harris), with whom he heads off across the abandoned countryside to find the source of a radio broadcast that promises salvation. 28 Days Later is basically an updated version of The Omega Man and other post-apocalyptic visions; but while the movie may lack originality, it makes up for it in vivid details and creepy paranoid atmosphere. 28 Days Later's portrait of how people behave in extreme circumstances--written by novelist Alex Garland (The Beach)--will haunt you afterward. Also featuring Brendan Gleeson (The General, Gangs of New York) and Christopher Eccleston (Shallow Grave, The Others). --Bret Fetzer

DVD features
Even though it's only a single disc, the 28 Days Later DVD includes a lot of very interesting features, including the alternate ending that was shown after the end of the film a couple months into its theatrical run. It's much bleaker, as director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland say in their optional commentary. Another alternate ending is almost the same as the theatrical ending but slightly less happy. Most interesting is the "radical" alternate ending that takes an entirely different path midway through the film. It wasn't filmed, however, so Boyle and Garland narrate the action over storyboards, and it's a surprisingly engrossing 11 minutes. Boyle and Garland also did a commentary track for the film, and they talk about how they were able to get the shots of deserted London and why they used the ending they did. There are also six very watchable deleted scenes, and Boyle and Garland's comments range from "great sequence" to "a disgrace." Slightly less relevant is a 24-minute documentary that spends its first 10 minutes on the real-life threat of infectious diseases before recapping the film and discussing such elements as the use of digital video and the boot camp the actors had to attend. If you need any further proof that the DVD was a labor of love, even the stills galleries have commentaries. --David Horiuchi

From The New Yorker
Another helpful development for the British Tourist Board. Danny Boyle's horror film, alternately savage and glum, shows London-and, by implication, most of England-destroyed by a fast-acting plague. Borne in the blood, it passes from one Brit to another with a single bite; soon, the capital is empty save for marauding zombies, leaving the unchewed-such as Jim (Cillian Murphy) and Selena (Naomie Harris)-to drift around, shop without paying, and never quite have sex. Any resemblance to normal teen-age behavior is entirely coincidental. Brendan Gleeson, much the best and cheeriest thing in the movie, plays a taxi-driver who helps them to leave town; from here on, Boyle and his screenwriter, Alex Garland, run out of gas. The picture is twitchy and annoying, flecked with blood and half-digested ideas, and too much is left unexplained. As a scheme for solving central London's traffic problem, though, it is unlikely to be surpassed. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Thinker's Horror
If you didn't like this movie, that's too bad, especially because that means you just cannot see a good movie even if it were to hit you in the face. The problem with this movie is that the zombies in the movie provide more of a backstory for the movie and the things that are happening.

Instead, what you get is a really smart and intelligent movie with a very good twist at the end that does actually make much better use of the zombies. Some of the images are praise-worthy as well, especially of the horses, the "bright sunny day" over the typical "doom-and-gloom" feel of most horror movies and just an odd soundtrack that, while it doesn't seem to fit in a horror movie only makes it that much creepier.

If you want a bloodbath, watch the sequel, 28 Weeks Later, which is much more intense, bloody, and violent, but just as intelligent and well made, with many hailing it as an on par sequel, a rarity in movies, especially.

If you like horror movies or intelligent movies, this movie is indeed a must-see, similar to, say, Rosemary's Baby, which is hardly scary at all.

*****5 stars*****

Thoughtful and Terrifying
Danny Boyle frightens and provokes in this Sci-Fi/horror/Armageddon thriller.

What if you woke up and everyone in London was gone? You are all alone in one of the most bustling cities in the entire world ...? Pretty scary. Now imagine finding out how that came to be ...? Also terrifying. Like a Lovecraft tale of terror, Boyle takes us on an adventure for truth and survival with the excellent Cillian Murphy.

Apocalyptic story lovers will not be disappointed with this film.

Highly recommend!

28 days later
A definite must see movie if you had not seen either 28 days later or 28 weeks later before. It makes a great leading movie into 28 weeks later. Shows how a mad rage virus can alter a whole country.