“Ok, Jim. I’ve got some bad news…”

Justin’s rating: Do they sell zombie treadmills? Are they cross-training? What’s their quick-quick secret?

Justin’s review: What if the end of the world came, and you slept right through it? I mean, “D’oh!” doesn’t really cover that sort of situation, does it?

A lot of people will try to sell this film to you as a zombie flick, but it isn’t, really. Sure, there ARE zombies, and the term “flick” IS one of three words I use over and over to describe any sort of moving picture experience, but the zombies thing is just the mechanism to get us to the real story. The real story takes place 28 days after IT all began. What is “it”? We’re not entirely sure, likewise is Naked Coma Guy (Cillian Murphy) who stumbles out of a London hospital and into a world of nightmares.

The reason The Stand (both novel and miniseries) remains one of my favorite fictional works is because the idea of exploring the world AFTER it’s mostly ended just makes my imagination pucker up and zip along. Like The Stand, London circa 28 days later is a giant haunted house — empty, but not totally empty. Signs of mass chaos are everywhere, including 50% off signs at most major shoe outlets, and Naked Coma Guy begins to figure out that he’s gonna make a slaughter on eBay once he breaks into Buckingham Palace.

What happened? Zombies happened, my good friend. Oh, at first everyone thought they were kind and sweet, a new branch of Jehovah’s Witnesses that slightly annoyed you by ringing your doorbell and eating a large portion of your neck, but then it just got out of hand. Honestly, the zombies of 28 Days Later are as fierce as I’ve ever seen them — running at top speed, yelling, taking cell phone calls during movies, unstoppable. And one bite, one scratch, one mere drop of blood in your eye or mouth, and you become one of them. (If you’re completely anal, you won’t call them “zombies” in this film, because they’re referred to as “infected” and technically are not the living dead.)

As the movie relentlessly pulls us onwards, like a demented theme park ride through purgatory, we are treated to glimpses, to brief stories of what happened, and our imaginations are all too happy to fill in the horrible gaps.

NCG teams up with a few survivors who creep through England as one of the smallest minority groups anywhere. As the stench of death and free shoewear fills the air, the quandary remains: what do you do after the world’s over and done with? Some say hide and survive to another day, some say escape to the continent to see if its the same there, and some push to find a sign of civilization, anywhere, on the island. I say, paddleboat down the Thames. That’d be a Mountain Dew-worthy rush.

The grainy digital camera look gives an eerie edge to 28 Days Later, putting us too close to the action. As the film is full of “what would you do?” moments, I almost wished the screen would back off a bit and let me enjoy this post-apocalyptic world at a safe distance.

I do hold two faults against how this movie was done. First, NCG just blandly accepts what’s happened without asking all the many, many questions I know I would. We are shut out of the what-actually-happened section of the backstory, and I craved it. Somehow, I think the first 28 days would’ve made for an even more interesting film. Second, the end plot with the survivors meeting up with slightly-off soldiers felt forced, as if the big Monty Python foot came down and went *squash* to make a deeper point about the fragility of human civilization.

Still, 28 Days Later is (if not outright scary) definitely spooky. It gives us a cold, hostile world were death is coming at you non-stop, and that’s nowhere I want to vacation this summer. One of the creepiest scenes was almost ripped right out of The Stand, as the heroes get a flat in the middle of a long, dark tunnel. Here’s a tip: don’t pin yourself in on all sides and make the zombie slaughterfest any easier on the monsters than it has to be!

Hey, if the world ends, I’m gonna be sitting on a beach, making the world’s first sandcastle movie theater, and you’re all invited, as long as you’ve had your shots.

Kyle’s rating: And people wonder why I’m terrified of vomit and people leaking blood

Kyle’s review: Listen, I debated this movie so long with my friend Chris after a bunch of us went to see it, that I’m firmly entrenched on the “I like this movie!” side. There are some problems: characters go from hard to soft and vice versa, for a zombie movie there aren’t enough zombie scenes, and can’t you absorb stuff (like, say infected blood) through skin as well as soft tissues. But this isn’t really a zombie movie: it’s just a movie about people who get infected and look like zombies, but move fast and barf blood like a track and field super star who, um, barfs blood. Hmmm.

Yeah, 28 Days Later offers some fun times. It gets disturbing, first in how bleak the world becomes (or at least London) once 98% of the population gets infected, and later in how far normal humans have to go just to survive each other. But it’s a horrific thrill ride that horror fans will dig, and it’s also uplifting in how the good guys can achieve success and survival no matter what the odds against them are. Watch it as a cool thriller or as a manual to follow if most of the world turns and runs after you very fast with blood red eyes. And if you’re a dude, be prepared for male full frontal nudity. Dang. Thanks, big guy.

For a movie that isn’t really about zombies, this is a cool zombie-ish movie. Too often, zombies move so slowly or lurchingly that it seems like you could jump and run and dance around them while you cut them up and blow them up with powerful firecrackers. But the “infected” in 28 Days Later run fast, look scary, and infect as many other people as they can with their own blood in some strange instinctual drive. I don’t recall them trying to eat survivors or anything, but maybe they did. But it’s more scary to see them running around or throwing up blood than tearing off chunks, probably because the running and barfing is just like the parties we go to on the weekends (don’t deny it, friends).

I think I read they’re putting a new ending on, or they’ll offer a couple more when the DVD comes out. Whatever. I like the ending that’s on now, though it might make some groan and make others groan and barf up blood. I think the film is fine as it is now. I like the heroes, I’m scared of the bad guys they have to face (which goes beyond the infected…), and I go tense when I consider the quandaries the good guys face, at the beginning of the film and then once they think they’re safe.

Don’t expect a huge-budgeted monster flick. This is an independent, focused horror movies that gives us our little intrepid band of survivors to follow and shows us how it goes in a world of infection. If that doesn’t appeal to you, or you’re drinking a big glass of tomato juice and you have a weak stomach, wait until morning and see this with an empty stomach, you know? And if you decide to play a prank on your friends with that glass of tomato juice, make sure one of your “friends” doesn’t have a machete handy. Yikes!