28 Weeks Later (2007)

Did it feel good to make this film? I only ask because it was borderline painful to watch. I love the predecessor to this idiotic sequel. In fact, 28 Days Later is one of the better horror films ever made. I need to get around to watching it again, because it probably deserves a higher rating. After its international success, they just had to make a follow-up, no matter how complete the original may have been. The end result is a treat for splatter fans and a turn-off for those of us who were captivated by the intelligence of the original.

First we see a clip of a man struggling to barricade his home from an onslaught of the infected masses terrorizing the countryside. (For those who didn’t see the original, animal rights activists break into a research facility and let loose apes infected with a rage inhibitor that is passable to humans.) The man is unable to save his wife but he gets away in a boat on the river running behind their property. As the title suggests, we fast-forward to 28 weeks later. The man, Don (Robert Carlyle), is acting as caretaker in a secure colony in the heart of London.

The colony, being run by American and NATO forces, is slowly bringing people back to Britain in an attempt to rebuild. Don’s children, who were in Spain during the outbreak, join Don in the colony but their curiosity gets the best of them. They sneak out into the countryside to find their old house and retrieve a picture of their mother. Instead, they find their mother alive but a symptomless carrier of the virus. She is brought back to the colony by security forces for observation. Don uses his security clearances to meet with his wife but he becomes fully infected after kissing her. Don goes on a rampage, causing a swift-moving outbreak within the colony, threatening everyone.

Maybe I’m just too sensible and realistic but there are too many gaffes in this film to enjoy it. Critics liked it for the most part but I can’t figure out why. Anyone can shoot enough holes into 28 Weeks Later to render it more fit to be Swiss cheese than cinema. Let’s begin with the easy stuff:

What’s the most common problem with horror movies in general? Bad decisions. This film is rife with them. For starters, what sensible child would even think about attempting to sneak out of a secure compound just to find a picture of their mother? Secondly, why would security forces bring an infected individual into the heart of their secure colony? Do you expect me to believe there are no outlying facilities they could use for observation? Third but probably not lastly, I don’t care how much you love someone; if they are infected with a nation-crushing virus, keep your hands to yourself unless told otherwise!

A problem unique to horror sequels is the ill-conceived notion that you have to up the ante. More often than not, this escalation leads to a higher death toll, more violence and more gore. This appeases hard-core splatter fans because their insatiable thirst for blood-spilling, limb-removing carnage knows no end. For those of us who aren’t trying to build up a tolerance for gratuitous gore, 28 Weeks Later offers plenty of opportunities to ponder what kind of story elements could have been included had we not been subjected to every other infected human vomiting up blood. Perhaps a plot hole could have been filled in or characters defined better. Instead, we get zombie spew. Gee, thanks.

Part of the problem is that the filmmakers lose sight of what made 28 Days Later so riveting. It’s not the blood and guts but the human drama. If people want to see gratuitous violence, let them watch the latest Saw movie or some other torture-porn dreck. Don’t dilute an intelligent film with a populist sequel. What’s shocking is that many of the people involved with the first film helped produce this one. Maybe their quest for ‘bigger and badder’ clouded their eyes to the fact that their story wasn’t up to snuff.

I like the idea of using children in the sequel but they are used in the wrong way. In the first installment, there was a teenage girl as one of the supporting characters. She was innocent and thought like a rational human being. She was also used amidst the human drama of the film quite well. This time around, the two children are even younger and there is little threat to them beyond the infected. There’s a subconscious wiring in our brains that all but forces us to care about kids this young when they are put in danger but 28 Weeks Later left me feeling more manipulated than concerned. The kids are thrown from one perilous situation to another (sometimes via their own poor decisions) but it feels very paint-by-numbers.

The other big switch this time around is the theme of the film. Where the original was all about survival after the collapse of civilization, the sequel covers what the first film skipped over. I’m not sure watching the breakdown of society and seeing men and women turn on each other is as palatable as post-apocalyptic wandering. There’s more intrigue in seeing the aftermath and trying to imagine how things got the way they are. Seeing the world blow up before your eyes with no room for interpretation isn’t as engrossing. If they were trying to emphasize the fragility of building a society, it didn’t work. All I see is chaos being thrown at me.

There are some interesting things going on in the film but they are too few to make up for all the failed logic. The mutation of the virus to be transmittable by saliva is interesting but it was never explained by any scientists and it’s never brought up by anyone after Don goes berserk. His status as an infected person is different too. Unlike the mindless behavior exhibited in the first film, Don seems to retain some intellect and even plans some of his attacks. This also isn’t explained scientifically, which leaves you wondering if it is a mutation in the virus or just something the filmmakers thought would be ‘cool and scary.’

Naturally, the film closes with an open ending, paving the way for another possible sequel. The ending is a clear sign that the surviving characters made further bad decisions or were just plain irresponsible. There is promise in a story involving asymptomatic carriers of the virus and rebuilding society but 28 Weeks Later does not deliver anything close to it.

RATING: 1.75 out of 5