28 Days Later – Analysis

28 Days Later, a bloodthirsty horror film directed by Danny Boyle was released in 2002. The opening begins 28 day after the first infection of the zombie outbreak.

We begin with the title of the film signifying this is 28 day later. There is an extreme close-up shot of the main character’s eye as it gently opens with a sharp intake of breath. This signifies he has woken up after the events that happened and he appears to be well. His hair is overgrown and unkempt, apart from one side of his head, which suggest he may have had some kind of brain surgery. This may be the cause of his prolonged time asleep. As he tries to manoeuvre out of the bed, he is entangled with operating equipment and monitors. This expresses that he has been left without any supervision.

The character ventures to the door and uses the key to open it. As he shouts “Hello?”, he progresses down the stairs of the hospital and sees payphones. They are all dangling by the wire, which shows that there has clearly been chaos with people trying to contact each other.

As he starts to become curious, he shouts louder “Hello!” to which he gets no response once again. He gathers cans of pop from a broken vending machine and continues his quest to find any signs of life. At this point I think he is in shock and is bewildered as to what is happening.

As he is outside he walks across a car park scattered with abandoned ambulance reinforcing the thought of chaos before. The camera then focuses on a long shot of the Thames River completely quiet and lifeless. This indicates surrealism as it is usually busy and diligent. He walks across the London bridges covered in rubbish and he stumbles across broken ‘Big Ben’ ornaments symbolizing the chaos that has happened. He is in awe as he continues through this lifeless city. I think he has reacted as though he is in a dream because he hasn’t broken down and he has been adventurous and fearless.

There is a gradual ascending volume of music in the background as he slowly thinks of a consequence of to why this is happening. As he progresses down the bridge, he sees an overturned red double-decker bus which is symbolic for London. The camera angles remain high as it is as if somebody is looking down on him and he is insignificant to the mighty human race.

He makes his way to black statues standing tall as they are untouched and remind him of human life. The sudden movement of the camera begins the drumming noise in the music. This could explain the noise of footsteps as they are marching through the city, leaving emptiness behind.

He starts picking up loose money from the stairway; this action is completely irrelevant as money is worthless when there are no others. He continues on and sees bird scavenging on the floor, this shows that whatever happened, birds survived the incident and they are making most of the lack of humans. This proves that the invasion must have been on the ground as the birds can easily flee from this.

As he moves down the street he finds an abandoned car parked on a yellow grid which no cars should stop on. As he progresses towards the car, we see an advertisement hoarding in the background; the advertisement is of a group of people smiling. The camera focuses on this and shows contrast in the character and the advert.

When he finally gets to the car, he investigates it and immediately the alarm goes off, this causes him to jump back in shock as it is the first loud noise that he hears. He takes a few gasps of breath to compose himself then wonders to a corner shop with newspapers scattered everywhere, looking for any sign of what may have happened. As the music becomes heavily louder, he picks up a newspaper which headlines “evacuation”. This is the point when the music is at a very fast pace to represent his heart beating in fear.

As the music continues, he walks to missing person posters covering a wall. This backs up his theory of evacuation when he sees many posters informing and warning people of missing persons. The camera zooms rapidly towards posters in sync with the music.

The camera then spins around him nauseatingly to show confusion and surrealism. The character must feel anxious and frightened as he has nobody to talk to. The scene ends by randomly zooming in on a poster to show individuality in a sea of identity as the music slowly dies down.

The next scene begins in a church, this setting is important as a church is seen as a refuge from evil. The camera angle is high focusing downwards from the cross which could mean that Jesus is looking down on him. As he walks up the stairs to the church nave, he encounters another biblical quote; Repent is a powerful word meaning to regret your sins as you caused this. The references to the bible explain to us that what has happened is biblical and people are turning to religion as they believe it is the end of the world. The lighting has a sharp, piercing glow on the words shining brightly on certain letters.

As he continues through, we see a massacre of dead bodies, this is a surprise for a merciful place and also because there were no dead bodies throughout London. As he repeats “Hello?” two zombie-like beasts emerge from the massacre, staring towards him. The character makes an unusual reaction and carries on walking forward, this is the first signs of life he has seen yet he is ignoring them.

He then hears footsteps from the door to the right, as he walks forward curiously, he repeats “Hello?” to which for the fifth time he gets no reply. As the footsteps get louder, the door bursts open with an infected vicar. The vicar comes retching towards him making sharp and random movements. He questions “Father?” This shows that he is a religious man as he calls the vicar father and you realize he has an Irish accent which may show us he is catholic.

As the zombie moves closer, the character says “Father, are you ok?” this is a rhetorical question as the character know he wont get a reply, but he is still refusing to believe he is in danger.

When the zombie tries to attack the character, he swings his bag at him, knocking him to the floor. He then regrets the action saying “Oh, shouldn’t have done that” because he realized he shouldn’t hit vicars. The vicar begins crawling along the floor still trying to grab the character. We notice that the vicar’s eyes are red, signifying he is infected.

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