Publication Date: 07-05-2025

28 Days Later (2002) review

Dir. Danny Boyle

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

A brief prologue shows a group of bleeding heart animal rights activists unwisely letting contaminated chimps out of their cages. The primates are infected with what becomes known as the “Rage” virus, spread through blood and other bodily fluids, and it has the ability to turn humans into manic, flesh-hungry beasts that move at the speed of light. 28 days later… Jim (a fantastic Cillian Murphy) awakens in an empty hospital and an equally desolate world outside. He crosses the Westminster Bridge and wanders London’s Piccadilly Circus marveling at the ruins; old newspapers inform him of the plague that has all-but caused the end of human life as we know it.

Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later has become a pillar of the zombie genre, but don’t you dare call it that to the English filmmaker himself. Outside of a handful of fleeting moments that feature infected humans, underscored by rapid-fire cuts, the film is very much a familial drama involving a gaggle of eccentric characters whose plan doesn’t involve tracking down a mysterious elixir nor backtracking to see if their relatives are alive. The plan is simple to survive. That is a luxury in these times.

Eventually, all of Jim’s wandering leads him to finding Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley), who catch him up following his conveniently timed coma, which was the result of a bike accident. The trio agree to stick together, although Mark bites the dust early into their pact. They soon find a middle-aged man named Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his teenage daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns), and later a vehicle that gets them some protection from the undead. The third act arrival of a soldier (Christopher Eccleston) should prompt some relief, for he has a confidence about him when it comes to dealing with the infection, but he is just as twisted as those who spew blood from every orifice and feast on their human counterparts.

Boyle shot 28 Days Later on Canon digital cameras, which gifts the film a gritty, documentary-like verisimilitude. It renders shots of empty London streets and ramshackle interiors that much more unsettling given the scuzzy visuals. It also allows Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to be more malleable with their shots, weaving the camera in places it ordinarily wouldn’t fit so comfortably. This includes shots inside tight vehicles, long-angle close-ups, and a plethora of instances where the camera is canted in such a way that makes you yourself feel off-balance.

Throughout, screenwriter Alex Garland — who would later go on to direct Ex Machina and the similarly paced/plotted Civil War — prioritizes character over action, but perhaps his smartest move was making the infection of humans happen so rapidly following contact. Being that people start to lose autonomy over themselves roughly 15-30 seconds after being bit or encountering infected blood, that eliminates the ability for anyone to conceal their infection. It also results in the sudden, and sometimes tragic loss of characters we’ve come to like. Garland is so careful to develop Jim, Selena, Frank, and Hannah into sympathetic individuals, and you fully realize it amidst the peril the group faces in the third act.

If you want to enjoy 28 Days Later as a zombie movie, you can easily do so. If you want to pick at threads suggesting allegorical significance with its hyper-realistic portrayal of the fragility of civilization and the prospect that, when faced with dire straits, humans will turn on their own like animals, Garland’s script has enough meat on the bones for you to do so. A slew of zombie films followed Boyle’s low-key, early aughts apocalyptic horror flick, and it’s a statement in itself that desperately few surpassed it in execution and human interest.

My review of 28 Weeks Later
My review of 28 Years Later

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, Christopher Eccleston, and Noah Huntley. Directed by: Danny Boyle.