But this isn't what I'll remember from the movie. I'll remember the forlorn intimate shots and the unsettling larger-scale ones of depopulated London; the horrifically fast movements of the undead (Boyle gets more from editing and sound effects and suggestion than a big-budget picture can get from explicit special effects); Harris's reasonable but merciless repression of emotion and Murphy's unabashed openness to it; and some of the looser sequences, one in a grocery store, for instance, in which Boyle unclenches his grip. But if 28 Days Later is discussed below its ambitions as a zombie movie, that's lucky for the moviemakers because their talents exceed their ambitions. It's a more memorable movie than it deserves to be.

You can find this review and a lot besides at The Kitchen Cabinet.

Alan Dale is author of Comedy Is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies.