Review: 28 Weeks Later (2007)

28 Weeks Later
reviewed by Samuel Osborn

Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Screenplay: Rowan Joffe, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Jesus Olmo, E.L.
Lavigne
Cast: Imogen Poots, Mackintosh Muggleton, Robert Carlyle
MPAA Classification: R (strong violence and gore, language and some
sexuality/nudity)

Now this is the way to do a sequel. 28 Weeks Later draws a terrific
blueprint for future horror sequels to follow. As usual, it wasn't
possible to bring on board the original director (Danny Boyle of
Trainspotters fame) and the original writer (Alex Garland) to work on
the sequel to 28 Days Later. Instead, the two worked as producers and
found an apt replacement: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. Not many saw
Fresnadillo's startling feature debut, Intacto, but those who did
remember it well. Intacto was compelling, dark, and precisely
intelligent. The same adjectives can quite fittingly be glued upon
Fresnadillo's second feature film, 28 Weeks Later.

The sequel fortunately doesn't require audiences to have seen the
original. Days have turned to weeks and the story of Cillian
Murphy's survival in posthumous England is finished; not continued
maybe because of reasons similar to the non-return of Mr. Boyle and
Mr. Garland. Anyway, 28 Weeks Later brings us up to speed with a
concise recap of England's resuscitation by United States and NATO
forces. The infected (i.e. Zombies) have been cleared of the island
and citizens are slowly being allowed entry into what is called
District 1. The United States Army inhabits this region, beginning
what is a modest allegory running parallel to the present war in Iraq.
The first children allowed into District 1 are Tammy and Andy (Imogen
Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton), rejoining their father after
separation due to the infection. Their father, Don (Robert Carlyle),
we learn through the grisly opening sequence, is a selfish twerp who
abandoned his wife for the sake of his singular survival. But as a
peculiarity in his wife's genetic ordering renders her semi-immune to
the zombies' virus, the importance of his children's safety becomes a
priority to the United States Army. Without giving too much away, this
peculiarity sets off a reaction that brings the virus into District
1's core, causing another gory eruption of glorious, limb-tearing
zombie violence.

The plot, like in any horror sequel, requires the help of a league of
peripheral characters to shore up the holes and contrivances it leaves
leaking. Along with the children, there are the parents, the
scientists, the Army commanders and the snipers for the screenplay to
shadow as the infection pierces the confines of District 1. Luckily,
Fresnadillo and his writers shrug off most of the symptoms of
sequelitis, leaving only a couple glaring plot conveniences that are
cause for unintentional laughter. (Explaining these plot hiccups would
spoil some hearty surprises). For the most part they manage to find
cleverly plausible situations for all these characters to inhabit,
each setting off a reaction for the other to deal with, making for a
high velocity of smart storytelling.

As in the original, the scares come as frequently as the action, with
both Mr. Boyle and Mr. Fresnadillo allowing the suspense to open the
throttle onto full-fledged chases and action spectacles. There's no
reliance on cats jumping out of dark closets and no reliance on
nauseating, bucket-filling gore. His scares are clever and always
compelling. The camera is continuously handheld, finding the candid
beauty in all the Zombie-fleeing and sometimes also finding honest
emotion in the characters' stories.

About the same time I screened 28 Weeks Later I was close to finishing
Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-winning novel The Road. The book is another
riff on post apocalyptic survival, a theme apparently at the forefront
of pop culture's psyche. McCarthy rendered his characters subject to
their environment, characters without control over their destiny, no
plot convenience to allow them redemption. The novel is devastating
and soulful, exciting and terrifying. 28 Weeks Later relies on
convenience no more so than any other Zombie picture, but the
convenience is still contrivance. The film kneels at the feet of
spectacle; required to find shortcuts to flare reactions and achieve
emotional benchmarks. It is more important that we don't see two
zombies killed by the same means; creative extermination is more
important than any character evolution.

But the comparison is maybe unfair. What is at stake artistically
isn't much to 28 Weeks Later. The bottom line is still a zombie and
his appetite. Except, both works employ similar devices to conjure
realism: Fresnadillo's handheld camera is the same as McCarthy's non-
usage of punctuation. They're clever immersion tricks. Each auteur
wants us to believe wholly in their world, zombie or not. 28 Weeks
Later is near to such success as The Road, though hampered by its
purpose as spectacle. The spectacle, after all is told, is still
spectacular, however undeserving it may be.
Samuel Osborn