Good work, RJ
I remember when i saw this for the first time, i thought it was brilliant. I told my fiancee, hey, theres this brilliant film you should see. No, put down that Adam Sandler DVD, i'll get us this here what has the zombie types and the gore. For some inexplicable reason, the second time around, the film seemed overlong and almost tedious in parts. Why, i ask thee. Anyhow, i apologised and probably got that Adam Sandler flick sometime soon. As for why the soldiers were so demented after just four weeks, maybe its simply because the situation has sent them all mad. After all, deserted London and so on and infected folks kiling all and sundry, these things are liable to fuck with a fellas good sense.

RJ,

I loved 28 Days Later and left the theater thinking I had seen a very creative, inspired and at times thought provoking horror film. I did feel as if the film essentially came to a halt once the survivors reached the army compound. I think Boyle was trying to show us the dark side of the survivor experience - men needing women to breed and utilizing modern weapons to achieve their caveman goals.

As for airplanes flying, it's clear there are survivors, why not an airplane pilot as one of the survivors? The novel Earth Abides by George Stewart is another great apocalyptic novel dealing with similar subject matter - minus the zombies, of course. A man awakens to find he is the only person on earth, and then travels across the country meeting other small patches of survivors. This is my favorite part of the novel. Once he finds a female survivor in San Francisco, and together they form their own society, the book changes gears and the sense of wonder is no longer as interesting. But Stewart's themes could not have been mined if not creating this second part of the book.

What Boyle was confronted with was the choice of sticking with the battle versus the zombies a la Romero, or study the battles between the survivors - which really had not entirely been done before. Boyle had no interest in mimicking past horror films, thus 28 Days Later is original in that sense.

the main problem with 28 days later, the thing i like the least, is that many people who've seen it seem to think it's creative and even original, when in fact it's pretty derivative as zombie movies go. OK the zombies are much faster than the traditional shamblers, but TBH, shamblers are more effective - they have you thinking "i could easily survive - just run away" but then you think further and realise just how many you'd have to kill to be safe...
As far back as the original Dawn Of The Dead, and possibly further (i'm no expert, having only seen the Living Dead series except the original, and the three Return Of The Living Dead films), there have been zombie films that suggest a virus as being the cause of the zombies (if more subtly than in 28 Days Later), and have the zombie plague transferrable to those unaffected by means of a zombie bite.
28 Days Later IS still enjoyable but, as you have pointed out, is just too full of glaring plot holes to be truly great.

Any horror film is reminiscent of other films - 28 Days Later is most obviously a semi-remake of The Omega Man....and on, and on, and on......It's a European take on an utterly American genre.....which I found interesting. The zombies are also secondary in this film to the survivors and their own dramatic situations. The zombies are rarely shown completely, as they dodge from dark corners with the speed of cheetahs......highly unique and mimicked in the recent Dawn of the Dead remake. And one never gets the feeling that the director has tongue firmly planted in cheek. This is a very dark film, and one is never entirely sure things are going to turn out well.....it kept me on the edge of my seat mainly because the take on this genre was so unique as to be unpredicatable. I appreciate this film (unlike Duke) more with each viewing. If anything, 28 Days Later is one of the LEAST derivative horror films I have seen in a while.....

I thought that the best thing about "28 Days Later" was that, despite the horror of the zombies, once we meet the army base full of men willing to use women as cattle, we realize that it is the depths of the human soul that contains the real horror.

At least, that's what I got from it. :)

Heck, I know of guys who would be willing to gang-rape a woman after four days, let along four weeks! Seriously, I don't think it had anything to do with "how long it had been," but rather with how power-mad the guys were. Steotypically anti-military, perhaps, but not quite as inexplicable as all that.

Cillian Murphy's character acted desparately as a man with no advantages. What would you do as one man up against a group of trained killers? I think you would try to take every advantage you could find, and one of those might be the half-second delay those trained killers might have about killing someone who still looks like their buddy. Anything that can help is worth doing when the odds are stacked against you.

As far as the airplane goes, it does beg a few questions, but that's why it is left for the end of the film. Clearly there are other survivors. Whether England or Europe are wiped out but the rest of the world is fine, or whether there are simply isolated pockets scattered around the world, it doesn't really matter. There are survivors, and the human race will continue.

"...highly unique..."
whilst it had far more zombie-related carnage, Day Of The Dead focused very heavily on the survivors it followed, rather than anything else - it had the senior military guy falling apart from being thrown nito the middle of a situation beyond his control, the grunts who for the most part will follow orders unquestioningly, the doctor guy who gets crazily caught up in his work, the melancholy guy who gets more and more suicidal, and so on.
Also, although they are parodies, the Return Of The Living Dead series all focus mostly on the people involved (although i admit that they do show how the zombie plague starts, and my personal opinion is that ROTLD 3 isn't all that good)
What i particularly liked about the Living Dead films is that, after the hopeful ending of Night... (the colour remake, im afraid i havent seen the b+w original), the two sequels portray the human race as gradually succumbing to the zombie plague. That's proper horror - the idea that something like that could happen, and wipe out the human race despite the fact that we had a chance of surviving.

jadester,

What possible reason do you have for not having seen the original Night of the Living Dead? It is only one of the 10 greatest horror films ever made, and the reason why we are likely discussing 28 Days Later in the first place.

Day of the Dead is the weakest of Romero's zombie trilogy, though Boyle does make several nods to that film in 28 Days Later too......

I think what people are missing here is that "28 Days Later" is NOT a horror film. It's science-fiction. It should be treated and analyzed as such. Comparisons to any Romero film are unwarranted. Yes this film has zombies but this is the story of a "disease" nearly wiping out the population of the UK in a few weeks, and the few survivors trying to find out what is going on and figure out how to continue living (and find a cure?).

Although I like it (I bought a previously viewed DVD copy), it certainly does have plot flaws, but where the planes come from is not one. It's not impossible to think that this zombie think is only confined to the British Isle because the zombies portrayed likely cannot fly planes, drive boats, or swim. I assumed the jet to be American, but it could be anything.

The true flaw of this film is that it sets out to be a sci-fi flick (As I mentioned before), but is gradually becomes rather stupid. The first half is dedicated to finding out what is going on and looking for a "cure", while the second half doesn't build on this. The second half is pointless and doesn't seem to flow from the first.

The second half would have been better served if:
Once its clear the Army people want to rape the women, our survivors figure out a way to escape, and then end up in some remote part of the British Isle. Now they have nothing left and a good sci-fi writer could come up with something to continue this story.

Either way, hopefully films like 28 Days Later spawn more concept films that have better implementation.

Toward the end of the story I got the idea (from one of the soldiers) that the entire island had been "quarantined." The rest of the world had decided to let the disease run its course, and only then to come and investigate the aftermath. I suppose that could include making the UK a no-fly zone for awhile. That's why there weren't planes earlier in the story.

"What possible reason do you have for not having seen the original Night of the Living Dead?"
lack of resources, and, i hate to admit this, but i have an aversion for black and white films. The only one i've so far been able to watch all the way through (and actually enjoyed but then i expected to) was Dr. Strangelove. Sorry. maybe someday soon i'll fight the aversion again to see the original NOTLD (it is the next B+W film in line for me to attempt at any rate)
"I think what people are missing here is that "28 Days Later" is NOT a horror film. It's science-fiction."
To a degree, the same could be said of the Living Dead series. Certainly, when i watched them, i did not feel that many parts were particularly scary, although there were a few (and of course shocks). But then, 28 Days Later does have a few scary bits too...the problem is that these days, IMO, it's actually pretty hard to make a genuinely scary movie - but that's getting onto a whole different topic (possibly worthy of discussion, if you're interested, although please note my experience of horror films is pretty limited)

please note my experience of horror films is pretty limited

jadester, if you don't watch black & white films, your experience in ALL films is limited.....

I think what people are missing here is that "28 Days Later" is NOT a horror film. It's science-fiction.

Iluvidol,
It's a good point, but not entirely valid. The Andromeda Strain is a science fiction film with no horror elements. 28 Days Later is a sci-fi with multiple horrifying elements. It is more accurately termed a sci-fi/horror film. That's like saying Alien is not a horror film but a sci-fi film, which is absolutely false, if not close-minded.

As for 28 Days Later becoming stupid, I think is also misguided. Boyle was more interested in dealing with the survivors rather than the zombies. There was something extremely Gothic, if not haunted about the army compound. The ladies trapped, forced to wear obscene party gowns before being raped - it was a peculiar nightmare come to life. These survivors are supposed to be safe within the compound, instead wishing to escape to the utter simplicity of a zombie-inhabited world. I thought it was inspired and definitely unexpected. Granted, the film was not as exciting as the first half, but it was still a creative stance taken by a director who frankly is a bit too talented to be wallowing in such formulaic fare....However, since such a talented director did decide to wallow, we were given 28 Days Later, one of the more interesting SCI-FI/horror films of the last several years.....

I think what you really need to compare the movie to is the rest of Danny Boyle's movies -- Trainspotting, The Beach, Shallow Grave.

28 Days Later isn't that different from the rest of them. Really can you make a case for zombiefied London being different from junked-out Glasgow? Or Gameboy Thailand?

Of course, the original Night of the Living Dead was so scary because we watched it at the drive-in (remember drive-ins?). No showing of NOTLD was complete without a group of teenagers aping a blank-eyed zombie look and squashing their faces up against your car window and pushing their zombie grasping hands into the partially-open window with the mike attached to it.

I suspect 28 Days Later might have seemed scarier at a drive in.

Anita,

These kids don't even watch black & white films, much less have the slightest clue as to what we are talking about when we say "Drive-In!"....lol

Any child who did not visit the Drive-In at least once missed out, I can tell you that...:)

I would only amend Chris' comment to read "Any child whod did not vist the Drive-In (sneaking in by hiding in the trunk)...

of course, I'd amend it with proper spelling, too.

I don't think we ever had drive-ins in england, but it is a good ponit that how you watch a film affects, er, how it affects you. Certainly, watching a film with scray bits in alone, in the dark, gives me the creeps more than, say, watching it in a lit room with friends. Perhaps now there is more of a need for "atmospheric" cinemas, i.e. cinemas that setup the viewing areas differently depending on the film being shown. of course, with our OTT prices here in england, i'm not sure i'd want the cinemas to have an excuse to furtehr bump up their prices...

Interesting idea jadester....most theaters show films in the dark, so how much that could work I don't know.....Old time theaters used to be huge beautiful palaces where the curtains opened when the film began......I vaguely remember such theaters as a child. Today i suppose we have big screen IMAX theaters, which do add to the moviegoing experience in tremendous ways......I think there is a good idea there......change the style of the theater in creative ways, then it does not matter the movie more than the experience of seeing the movie.....interesting....

My wife isn't a fan of scary movies, so I watch the film on DVD, on my iMac screen. As it happened, it was about 3am when I started it, too, and I was curled up in a "lazy-boy" recliner.

Perhaps that's why I liked it so. Creepy, man.

jadester, it's okay that you don't want to watch black and white movies since the theatres don't have black and white projectors anymore.

If you want, you can get NIght of the Living Dead to download at archive.org, since it is in the public domain.

..Well about the airplane at the end of the film..
it was a plane from Finnish Airforce, the pilot is talking finnish and English with finnish accent, and the markings at the plane was finnish and the pilot is saying at the end to send a helicopter.. and its clearly that this was only happen at the British Mainland. In film no2 they are running in Paris at the end...
There was another plane before that, probably a bigger jet because it was high above the sky.