Baby we were born to run...

I'm not a proponent of the running zombie, in general. The nu-zombies of the Dawn of the Dead remake and 28 Days Later. I think what's so scary about zombies is that although they are slow, they are also inexorable. Unless you're really careful and a little bit lucky, they'll probably eventually get you, despite their lack of mobility.

That being said, I did like both 28 Days Later and (surprisingly) the DotD remake. I give 28 Days Later a pass because they're not "zombie" per se, in that the infected are not reanimated corspes; they're just that: infected.

All this leads up to the fact that I saw 28 Weeks Later last night. (For the purposes of this review, the infected will be referred to as zombies, although technically they are not.) Now I've seen my share of horror movies. And your share. And her share. And half of his share. I've seen a lot of horror movies. At the most, nowadays, I will usually get creeped out, maybe a little disturbed, by a horror movie. But not usually very scared (except for the transitory "BOO!" scare they use in the films.) The closest I've gotten to scared in recent memory has probably been Wolf Creek, but that's because of the fact that it is supposedly based on a few true stories.

Well, 28 Weeks Later is fucking scary! 20 minutes after the movie was over, I was at home and my heart was still somewhat beating like I had just finished up at the gym. If you ever want to feel like you're in the middle of what it's like to be caught in an outbreak of people with Olympic sprinter speed that want to either chew through your neck or make you like them, this is the movie to see. The reason for this is pretty much all about the cinematography. Think back to the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, when they're landing at Normandy. The use of the handheld camera, and shooting style was almost documentary in style, making you feel like you were there, bullets whizzing around, people dying on every side of you, death only seconds from your door as well. (A more recent example, Children of Men, uses this style of shooting very well, too.) Now imagine that same style of sitatution but it's not bullets and Nazis, but zombies and you have 28 Weeks Later. This is what my nightmare of being surrounded and pursued by zombies would look like.

There are a few stretches of the story where you'll need to turn on your disbelief filter, but they are overruled by the general, all around awesomeness that is this film.