28 Days Later

Cillian Murphy - Jim
Naomie Harris - Selena
Megan Burns - Hannah
Brendan Gleeson - Frank
Noah Huntley - Mark
Christopher Eccleston - M

Director Danny Boyle, screenwriter Alex Garland and producer Andrew McDonald reunite since last collaborating on The Beach (2000) for this extremely violent and disturbing science fiction thriller set in a post-apocalyptic London. Garland’s gory Darwinian screenplay is heavily influenced by the likes of novelist John Wyndham and director George A Romero making the narrative somewhat derivative, and Boyle’s decision to shoot on grainy digital video subtracts from the films representation.

A virus that locks those infected into a permanent state of killing rage is accidentally released from the British Primate Research Centre when the laboratory is raided by animal rights activists. Carried by animals and humans, the virus is impossible to contain, and spreads across the country and possibly the entire planet. Twenty-eight days later, bicycle courier and coma patient Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakens in a deserted hospital and ventures outside to wander through the streets of a now desolate central London.

When entering one of the city’s churches he is attacked by a rabid zombie and rescued by a small group of uninfected survivors that includes the cynical Selena (Naomie Harris). Caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the contaminated roving mobs, Jim and Selena eventually form a makeshift family with Frank (Brenda Gleeson) and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). None of the survivors have any idea how far the destruction has spread, and after receiving a radio message offering salvation, they travel together up the M1 to the north of Manchester to a military compound under the command of Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston).