Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Zombie Redux


Here's a great NRO piece examining the zombie world of 28 Days Later and it's new sequel, 28 Weeks Later:
To understand why 28 Weeks Later is, relatively speaking, such a disappointment, it’s necessary to take another look at its predecessor. That’s just as well, because 28 Days Later is a much more interesting movie — and much more fun to write about. Easily the most gripping horror film of the last decade, the most shocking thing about its 113 minutes is quite how good they are. Sure, 28 Days Later is relentless, fast-paced, and savage, but it also displays a depth, intelligence, and lyricism that would be surprising in almost any horror movie: To find these qualities in a zombie flick is little less than miraculous.
If you recalled, 28 Days Later scared the living crap out of me. I'd gotten into the a hotel late, with a 6AM flight the next morning; I was dead tired from driving and figured to watch a few minutes of a zombie flick and go to sleep. With seconds of the opening credits, my eyes were wide wide open and sleep was a long time coming...a profoundly scary movie. Sequels being what they are — the sainted Godfather trilogy exempted, of course — I don't expect much from 28 Weeks Later, but I could be surprised. I do love the subtitle of the website: 15 Gigs of Fear!

4 comments:

Jay.Mac said...

I fear you may be disappointed by the sequel. I quite like the first film apart from one major element- the portrayal of the British soldiers. They're would-be rapists, thugs and one seems to be of sub-standard intelligence. The only "good" soldier in that film was the one who blamed the outbreak on (forgive me if I'm mis-remembering this) the abuses of the planet. And that tells you everything you need to know about the film-maker's view of the military.

Cut to the sequel and the trailers here have it that the American army has arrived and declared victory...but it's not over yet. Are they trying to make some sort of comment about Iraq? Possibly. Obviously I haven't seen the film yet but I'll be astonished if the US Army aren't portrayed as the real villains of the piece.

I hope I'm wrong but most zombie films seem to need some sort of "cutting" statement about society these days. Thanks George Romero.

Anonymous said...

The Godfathery trilogy? Godfather I and II yes. Godfather III was a bunch of crap.

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