28 Weeks Later (2007)
The much anticipated, much hyped “critic exchange program” between HorrorYearbook.com and Fatally-Yours.com has arrived…let me present to you the review for 28 Weeks Later by the much revered Dr. Royce Clemens of HorrorYearbook.com!
When you are finished with his enthusiastic review, be sure to click here, where the review for yours truly is posted.
And now, let me present the Good Doctor at his finest and most enthusiastic!
28 Days Later, when it came out in 2003, rocked in its own right, but was best used as genre deconstruction. In every zombie movie they lurch at you slower than David Arquette’s train of thought in a Geometry class. And someone gets bit, but they keep it a secret for hours because they’re retarded and the screenwriter ran out of ideas.
28 Days Later said “Fuck that and FUCK YOU for wanting to see that tired horseshit!” Their motherfuckin’ zombies RAN! And may God and his son Stephen Colbert HELP you if you get bit. You do, you got ten seconds. How fast can you say a Hail Mary?
Naturally a movie that fresh and inviting was met by detractors amongst the most smug of hardcore horror fans, because they fear change like Pat Robertson fears gay marriage. I think their comments went something like…
“Those aren’t zombies! They’re still alive and they run! Where am I? Who are you? Flames on Optimus Prime are awesome! Where’s my KY?”
Well, those basement dwellers are gonna have to break out their ball gags and control-top panty hose in protest yet again, because now it’s 28 Weeks Later, and it has everything the first movie had turned up to eleven, fuckin’ Tap style. It’s the best horror/action hybrid since Aliens. And never–AND I DO MEAN “NEVER!”–have I ever been so viscerally bitch slapped by a movie.
The film opens on another side of England from the first movie, where a few folks are trying to hold up from “The Infected” (blood-puking, angry, speedy zombies). A few of ‘em get in and Don (Robert Carlyle from Trainspotting) leaves his wife to die to save his own ass…Fuck you, you’d do the same. Hell I’d do the same even if there weren’t zombies coming after us. Serves the wench right, eatin’ my Doritos! Anyway…
28 weeks later…
America sends in some folks to clean up and repopulate England… Because when you think of great ideas, you think of the American government and the term “rebuilding.” Anyway, Don gets back into contact with his kids, who were at school in another country at the time of the original outbreak. He’s basically the caretaker of all London town. But the kids get all misty-eyed for their dear departed Ma and go out into the unprotected countryside to try and find their old house.
And this is why. THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD ALWAYS LOOK AFTER YOUR KIDS! One minute they’re there and the next, they’re reintroducing a horrible zombie plague into London AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT…And I ain’t telling you the specifics as to how. It isn’t a huge shock, but it fits in really well with that whole “character development” thing that hasn’t been seen in horror movies in a long-ass time.
Before I go any further, I am aware that some of you horror fans are cringing at my use of the word “zombie” in the context of this movie. I think some of you are even wringing your hankies that I’m not capitalizing the very word, but HEAR THIS!
Are there a million of them? Are they human? Are they coming after people? Are they biting people to make more of them? THEN THEY’RE ZOMBIES! If you don’t give on this, you have given these two films and the Dawn of the Dead remake their own subgenre, which isn’t what you wanted in the first place. So EAT SOME CROW after you’re done eating my ass!
And yes this is a sequel, but director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (who, when not making movies like Intacto is making love to your daughter right now) uses any perceived lack of freshness as an asset and not a liability. Like in those opening scenes in the little fort those folks made up. You KNOW what’s coming, but you ain’t sure when, and you’re holding your breath for the fucking shoe to drop. And then it does, like a sock in the jaw. And it manages to keep this level of dread throughout. AND, Fresnadillo uses shaky-cam in the best way I’ve ever seen.
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo DOESN’T EVEN KNOW THE MEANING of the phrase “letting up…” Seriously. He’s from Spain and English isn’t his first language. He needs help with a few things.
Those of you who are regular readers of my reviews know that this isn’t like anything I’ve written. I have earned the “Dr.” part that goes in front of my name. I am dry and wordy and all that crap you hate critics for. But this movie just sucked me in, to the point that I was just watching the movie and not analyzing anything. There are phrases thrown around for this movie like “Gulf War Allegory,” and I honestly couldn’t tell you about it because I was in for the ride against my better judgment. And for a scant ninety minutes this wasn’t a job. Or a hobby. Or a calling. Or whatever bullshit reason folks find to justify finding fault in the work of others.
I was a dude watching a movie. I was a spectator.
I was a fan.
28 WEEKS LATER saved me from myself, and it was fun going to the movies again.
**** out of 4
Available on Amazon
Fatally Yours would like to thank Dr. Royce Clemens and HorrorYearbook.com for participating in this critic exchange program! It’s been a lot of fun and I hope we do it again sometime soon!
Saturday, May 12th, 2007 at 10:37 pm | Filed under Horror Reviews.
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