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: #4397 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

Horror film? Nah... Great film? Yes, definitely!
There is very little about this movie that can be considered "horror" per se. At best, in this sense, the film is a suspense flick, with a somewhat spooky score/soundtrack (that added plenty to the tension in its atmosphere), and a great cast who portrayed the best and worst traits in human nature.

I can understand those who give the movie a bad review since they were expecting something extremely scary (that's the way in which it is being marketed) and ended up watching an intelligent, well presented study in good and evil, right vs. wrong, loyalty vs. survival, and many other concepts that one wouldn't expect from a "horror" flick. This movie, in that sense, simply was not what the average goer was promised.

Now, as far as good films are concerned, this is definitely a worthy effort. It has more depth than one could ever expect; the cinematography is done extremely well; and the acting is superb (even on the part of the nearly silent and secondary infected characters). The symbolism is one that the average movie watcher might not get, especially if they're looking for two hours of gore or scary moments (there are very few of those, as the director clearly preferred to refrain from using extremely graphic imagery).

Indeed, what makes this film a valuable one is the social criticism and the analysis of human nature that it presents. What is more important, survival or friendship/family? Are the ethics of scientific research being checked to prevent the creation of harmful agents (even if not as tragic and extreme as what we see in this film)? Is it worth fighting for one's life when hope is dim or even non-existant? Many more questions arise and give extreme value to this film. This is definitely an excellent example of existentialist movie making. Whether it is a horror film or not becomes irrelevant once you observe its true meaning.

So, if you are the kind of person who enjoys trashy and bloody films like the Jason or Freddy "epics," or if you cannot handle too much thinking while at the theatre, then this is not a movie for you. If you've enjoyed "smart" flicks like "Lost Highway," "Frailty," or "The Ring," then this is definitely for you. You will feel good about seeing this one, even though it portrays so many bad and ugly things about us as "humans."

Stylish Homage to '70s Flicks
28 Days Later is stylish, lonely, bloody, desperate, wet, violent, frantic, thoughtful, scary and, ultimately, hopeful. Danny Boyle artfully directs Alex Garland's script while paying homage to movies like the Omega Man and George Romero's Dead trilogy. As hard as it is for me to say, 28 Days is a much better film than any of the films mentioned above.

The movie focuses on the people who have not been infected with a virus that turns humans into rage filled zombies. In fact, the zombies only make a few screen appearances, the fear factor of the movie coming mainly from the reactions of the uninfected people to their situation. The main characters are well acted and I cared about what happened to them. Visually the movie is a masterpiece and the scenes in an empty London are incredible.

I recommend 28 Days Later to fans of the other movies mentioned above or anybody looking for a thoughtful, scary zombie film. People looking to pull their brain out for a few hours or for non-stop gore and zombies will most likely be disappointed.

Not just another horror flick
I have begun to think that zombie movies are fundamentally about social alienation: the paranoid fantasy that anyone, even the people you love, can suddenly become an inhuman monster and turn against you. This is definitely true of this movie, for me: I feel most scared by it when I am feeling most alienated and downtrodden by society.

In any case, this was the scariest movie I have ever seen. Not just make you jump scary but get under your skin and give you nightmares scary. After seeing it, I had to sleep with my lights on and doors open for two months. But also it really made me think about things like: what is civilization? At one point they have a captive infected and the army guy is studying him. The hero asks him what he has learned and he answers, "I have learned that he will never bake bread." Okay, laugh at me if you want, but I like to bake bread, the old-fashioned way, starting with yeast and doing it all by hand. But I never really thought about all the factors that baking bread depends on: the domestication of wheat, a process that took thousands of years; sufficient social organization to harvest, process and distribute it; my knowledge of the exact formula necessary to get the bread to work right; the gas company delivering gas to my apartment so I can bake it... and so on. What a long and fragile chain of things that could be broken at any link. That's civilization, something we all take for granted.

Another thing I really liked about this movie (although I will never see it again because it scared the heck out of me and anyway I can practically replay the whole thing in my memory) is the way certain otherwise ordinary moments are made transcendant--a bridge or an airplane brings almost you to a state of grace.

Finally, the army guys show that the potential for infection is not just from blood; it's in our blood. It doesn't take a lab experiment gone out of control. It could happen any time and does. That's what war is.