Hey everyone, Capone in Chicago here. There is something about the nature of a virus that has always terrified me, the way that its sole purpose is spread to another person, then another and another. That's pretty much the life's mission of a virus. The film 28 DAYS LATER… preyed on that fear, along with the other very real nightmarish fear of being physically ravaged by screaming, bloody-eyed lunatics who have taken over one of the world's cradles of civilization. But sometimes these individuals infected by something called the Rage Virus don't want to just rip out your throat. No, sometimes they wanted to vomit their diseased blood right onto your face and make the virus spread. Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland tapped into a few core human fears and made one of the great modern horror films, one that seemed fueled by adrenaline, rage and terror. Boyle and Garland have not returned for the sequel, 28 WEEKS LATER…, (Boyle is credited as an executive producer, however, if that means anything) but I have to admit the film still got to me. The movie opens during the initial outbreak. A group of mostly strangers to each other before these events have holed up at a country farm outside London. They seem to have established a protected and safe shelter, until a young boy arrives begging to be let in. It isn't until after he is brought into the house that he informs the group that he is being chased by the infected, and soon enough, the crazies are busting through the boarded up doors and windows to tear shit up and create more creatures like them. Robert Carlyle (TRAINSPOTTING) stars as Don, husband to Alice (Catherine McCormack). The pair get separated briefly, but rather than run across a room to save his wife, Don runs out of the farmhouse, leaving his lovely wife to a presumably disgusting fate. Cut to roughly 7 months later, and the infected have essentially starved to death, and all signs of the Rage Virus have disappeared from the UK. Yay! The U.S. military has moved in to assist with the re-population of London. Well, it's not really London, but one small section of London that has been deemed safe. Gee, you'd think people would want to wait until a little more of the country was made 100 percent safe, but I guess people's desire to return to normal outweighs such concerns. It's certainly not out of the realm of believability. Among those returning are Don's children (Emily Beecham as Karen and Mackintosh Muggleton as Andy), who were out of the country on a school trip of some sort during the outbreak. When the kids ask what happened to their mother, Don has a slightly modified version of the story to tell them, but one he believes will ease the kids' pain of losing their mother. It doesn't take long for the two children (the only two in the country, it would seem) to sneak out of the safe zone to go visit their old home and gather some personal belongings. Once in their old home, they discover their mother, clearly rattled, but very much alive. A military doctor (Rose Byrne) confirms a disturbing fact about Alice: she has the Rage Virus, but something in her blood is keeping it from taking hold. She's a carrier. We think the worst thing that's going to happen as a result of Alice being alive is that Don's kids will question their father's truth-telling abilities. Alas, when the couple are reunited (after Don sneaks into the hospital) and kiss, well, let's just say Don goes a little loopy. 28 WEEKS LATER… is a fairly satisfying scare film. Once the second outbreak begins, things go pretty much as expected. The presence of the military makes containment a little more organized but not particularly effective. They use snipers, flame throwers, chemical weapons and firebombing to deal with the situation, but a few of the infected (including Don) still manage to avoid getting wiped out entirely. I liked the inclusion of Jeremy Renner as a sniper named Doyle, who decides to disregard orders and wipe out anything that moves on the ground in order to help the two children survive (since their blood could possibly be useful in eradicating the virus. Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (INTACTO) does a respectable job creating a climate of utter chaos and confusion, peppered by moments of real humanity. His characters aren't quite as hardened as the ones in the first film, which is both good and bad, we find out. And I'll admit, I got a bit of a charge seeing Carlyle go nuts and spew his diseased mucus out at people. I judge these types of films by a simple formula. Did it scare me? Yes. Did it tap into some buried fear in my psyche? Double yes. On a certain plain of reality, did the film seem credible? Mostly. A strong cast and harrowing story makes 28 WEEKS LATER… nearly as good as the original, and that's a recommendation, in case you can't tell. And it has one of the coolest postscripts I've seen in a while. Damn that Chunnel!

Capone