28 Days Later

28 Days Later is a frightening, well-acted horror film whose later excesses cannot quite spoil its opening. Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland start with a fear that needs little explaining: Britain has been devastated by a rage virus, and London is deserted. The infected move fast, but the film earns our attention before they get going. We have time to consider what living in this place would mean.

Anthony Dod Mantle’s digital-video photography makes those empty streets look unpleasantly plausible. The roughness suits a city that has lost its inhabitants; a cleaner, more polished image might have made the sight easier to dismiss. Mark Tildesley’s production design helps keep London recognisable, so the emptiness remains disturbing even before we know what might interrupt it. We were frightened by those vacant streets, and by the silence that makes us wait for someone to appear.

Chris Gill’s editing makes the shift from stillness to attack properly jarring, and Boyle uses the speed of the infected well. They leave little time for the comfortable business of watching a threat approach and planning an escape. Some of the digital-video action blurs beyond usefulness, however, making violence harder to follow without making it more frightening. John Murphy’s score adds urgency, though the early silence does more to unsettle us.

Cillian Murphy gives Jim enough uncertainty to let us share his alarm without tiring of his company. Naomie Harris is persuasive as Selena, and Brendan Gleeson gives Frank a warmth the film needs. Megan Burns’s Hannah helps make this group feel like people with something to lose, and the scenes between attacks benefit from her presence. Christopher Eccleston is particularly assured as Major Henry West, although some of the dialogue around him is less convincing. The cast keep us interested when Garland’s conversations become laboured.

Garland’s writing becomes less persuasive when it tries to spell out what the crisis says about human nature. The question of how much decency survives fear belongs in this kind of horror, and the film is right to ask it. But some conversations labour over ideas that the actors have already made clear, slowing a film otherwise good at getting to the point. As the violence grows more extravagant, Boyle also starts to lose the unnerving sense that this could be happening somewhere familiar.

Within zombie horror, the speed of these attackers gives a familiar problem a useful new pressure. Across its 113 minutes, the film also makes enough time for the survivors to keep the quieter stretches involving. We recommend it to horror viewers who can tolerate blunt writing and some untidy action in exchange for scares that hold up afterwards. This is one to watch with someone who will sit through the quiet bits without talking.