28 Days Later on DVD

Think about if you were to wake up in the hospital, only to discover that you’re the only person there.

Then think about if you were to go outside to discover that there’s nobody there, either.

Finally, think about if you walked into a church to find a pile of corpses, only to have a couple of them spring to life and charge at you with a seemingly murderous rage.

This covers the first several minutes of 28 Days Later, a brand-spanking new zombie movie from director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting). It redefines the genre, and turns out to be a brilliant, scary-as-hell movie that will leave you thinking as well.

A group of animal rights activists breaks into a science lab in which monkeys are being kept captive in cages that don’t leave much to the imagination. The activists demand the scientists free the monkeys, but the scientists remark that the captive primates are infected with a disease called “rage.” It’s not your typical disease: this one only takes 20 seconds to take effect, and it makes the infected want to rip apart any living thing it comes across (except, of course, for other infected individuals).

So after his initial encounter with the enraged “zombies,” our hero runs into a couple of other uninfected people, who help him escape. They then run into a father and daughter, also uninfected, and together they head to an army outpost that is advertising on the radio that they have a cure for the disease.

From there, it’s not as much about zombies as it is about people. It’s a brilliantly written and equally brilliantly directed movie that will scare you, intrigue you, keep you guessing, and yes, even entertain you completely.

If you’re sick of the horror movies of the last several years, 28 Days Later is a refreshing twist on the genre. A very high recommendation.

An unexpected hit in theatres this past summer, Fox has provided their usual excellent DVD to accompany this great film. It features anamorphic widescreen (and separate Pan&Scan, unfortuntately) transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround audio, and a host of extras that will keep you entertained for a while.

The picture quality is a little soft and grainy, but in this case we’re not complaining. First of all, it was a fairly low-budget movie, but secondly, it was all shot with handheld cameras (or so we hear), so it actually feels more realistic. It also makes it that much creepier.

The audio is mostly excellent, but a bit of a disappointment at the same time. The quality is very good, but the discrepancies in volume are an annoyance. During the non-action scenes, the dialogue is so low that you have to turn up the volume a lot; but then, when the action starts, it gets so loud that you jump out of your seat and fumble for the volume control. Okay, so we understand that this was the intention, but when you’re watching the movie late at night, you have to be conscious of your neighbors. It’s hard to be entirely engrossed in the film when you’re always afraid you’re going to get complaints.

Features include an audio commentary by Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland that is very interesting, but it’s hard to make them out from time to time. There are also three alternate endings that we won’t dare to spoil for you, “Pure Rage,” a 25-minute making-of featurette, deleted scenes with optional commentary, a music video, animated storyboards, and trailers.

28 Days Later, from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
113 minutes, anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) 16x9 enhanced, 5.1 Dolby Digital
Starring Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston and Brendan Gleeson
Produced by Andrew MacDonald
Written by Alex Garland, Directed by Danny Boyle

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