28 Weeks Later

*** Mild Spoilers!!! ***

Wow. They really saw sideways with this movie. It was fantastic and truly terrifying. I can sit through most media without flinching, but I had my hand clapped over my mouth through much of this movie. Before I get into plot, just let me say that the visuals, music, sound effects, acting, and EVERYTHING were just excellent.

Now here's what I think they did differently in this movie from any other zombie movie I've seen. If you haven't seen it, this gets kinda spoilerish.

People who have seen a few zombie movies (or survival oriented) movies should pick up on this very easily. Stop and think to yourself -- What causes shit to hit the fan every. single. time? Every time the survivors get something good going for themselves, who screws it up? How does it end? Usually one person in the group does something selfish and ends up screwing them all, right? Or an outside group enters the scene with malicious intent.

I cannot think of a single survival story at the moment that doesn't follow this trend. Human greed, selfishness, mistrust, competition, violent nature, etc always turns around on us right? Even 28 Days Later had very much the same idea.

28 Weeks Later seems to offer exactly the opposite message. Now I'm not saying that the entire cast of the movie is a bunch of saints. But every time one of the characters is faced with a decision to be either compassionate or practical, they choose compassionate. Plus, in general, everybody in the movie acts very believably and very intelligently. When forced to be practical, people choose practical. It's the seemingly innocent choices that always screw them.

And throughout the movie, every time somebody does something compassionate, it is punished in increasing numbers of lives.

Through the entire movie people are faced with seemingly harmless decisions. "There's a child survivor and no infected in sight, let's let him in the house. The infection is gone, let's allow children into the reconstruction colony. The infection is gone, I won't shoot these children when they sneak out of the colony. The infection is gone, this survivor couldn't possibly be a carrier. Let's delay the order to kill without discrimination until absolutely necessary. I've been ordered to kill without discrimination, but he's just a child and he's not infected. I should be protecting this kid. I've got a helicopter and these are just kids. They don't act like infected. There can't be any harm in giving them a ride out of the country, right?"

The most striking example is a common theme throughout the movie. This woman and her kids can carry the virus without getting violent. Her blood carries a partial immunity. This could be interpreted as a positive or negative thing. The negative thought is that this is a carrier who can infiltrate society without being identified. If allowed to live a normal life, they could be the source of another outbreak that nobody will be prepared for.

Almost everybody in the movie sees it the positive way. This is just a kid. I can't kill a kid, it's inhuman. They're a hope for humanity. Their blood could lead to a cure. People band together throughout the movie to save these kids and get them to safety. In the end, their compassionate decisions carry the infection over to mainland Europe.

Now that is a horror movie! A million times I've seen the message "People are shit and we're going to get eachother killed." It's kind of a downer, but no big news, right? Now I'm faced with the message "People are soft and we're going to get eachother killed. Sometimes practical safety for the greater good overrides humanity." And then they present a situation where several people should have looked a child in the face and realized that they were dealing with something bigger than the life of a child, bigger than their own feelings of humanity or goodwill, and bigger than their personal judgement.

Looking back on that movie, I realize I would have made all the same decisions and got those kids safely to the continent. Now I have to face the idea that those decisions would have led to global catastrophe. The entire movie had me rooting for those kids. Then it was incredible how the story spat in my face when it showed them flowing over the ocean. What a turnaround when I suddenly find myself thinking "Oh my god you should have killed them." That's real horror, and that's definitely Seeing Sideways.

I hope nobody hates me for spoiling the movie for them :P... if you haven't seen it and you can stomach some intense heart-wrenching terror, then it's a definite must-see.