28 Weeks Later

Watched this film again last night, and once again I really enjoyed just how visceral and pacy it is. I've been a fan of the franchise ever since I watched 28 Days Later a couple of years ago. I loved how fast-moving it was and just how ridiculously violent it was in some places. And strangely, I also really liked the complete sense of hopelessness that pervaded throughout the film. That sounds odd - how could you enjoy being depressed - but the way the film is shot and directed, you really feel for the characters and the situations they are put in.

I really like the long shots of deserted London - it's so surreal seeing London completely empty, like a ghost town - completely and totally un-natural, and really really eerie. Seeing Wembley stadium with grass a couple of feet high is just weird. The times that they chose to film these shots - often dusk and dawn, make them so much more powerful.

The film makers used circus performers and dancers to play the zombies, and the shaky, cross-cutting camera work really adds to the sense of reckless, horrible evil of the infected humans. Make-up was spot on too, with bleeding eyes, missing limbs etc. etc. And in the second film, Robert Carlyle looks scary as f*ck when he keeps appearing all over the place.

Another thing that struck me about the film was how good the music was. There's only really one major theme, but it's a great guitar-driven piece, full of slowly building momentum that gives me goosebumps everytime I hear it.

Lastly, the graphic design that went into the packaging and posters for the film creates a great presence. It's grungy, rough-edged design, with high contrast colours and desolate imagery.

All in all, this film franchise is an excellently packaged piece of work, a piece of work where all the important elements come together to create something bigger than the sum of its parts. Good stuff.