The bunkers are filled with similar surveillance crews, and the streets outside the main district have hazmat teams bagging and burning the dead. After the titular 28 weeks, the repopulation of London is being overseen solely by the US military, with snipers on rooftops spying on these new citizens through their rifle scopes. While the storyline focuses on a family riven by cowardice and anger, 28 Weeks Later plays out almost in opposition to Boyle's work, actively setting up the personal drama to speak more specifically about the larger social commentary. After being united with his children 28 weeks later in a rebuilding London, they find that his wife didn't die and is instead an asymptomatic carrier of the Rage virus, who manages to reinfect London again. Beginning with a scene that takes place during the initial infection phase from 28 Days Later, the sequel sets up a story that seems to follow Boyle's more personal storytelling style: after the infected attack a group of survivors, a man chooses to abandon his wife to certain death and save himself instead. Coming out in May 2007, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's sequel carries with it the baggage of a war already defined by death, torture and failure. If 28 Days Later was a strangely prescient commentary on militarism and catastrophe, then 28 Weeks Later is a direct response to that cruelty in the real world. This dark vision of the apocalypse, one where the systems that are supposed to be protective and restorative are actually violent and destructive, hits close to home, especially in this context of war. This brief glimpse into the mind of West not only offers insight into the way he thinks but also describes exactly what the military does, which, when it comes down to it, is a globally accepted example of people killing people. In a scene where the soldiers fantasize about a future world when it's back to "normal," their leader Major West suggests that the world hasn't strayed too far from normal because, as far back as he can remember, people have always been killing each other. But once they arrive, one is immediately infected and gunned down by the soldiers, and the other three are held captive at the mercy of the small military group who plan to rape and murder them. But what makes both these films strange and powerful is that the main threat isn't the infected it's the military.īy the end of 28 Days Later, the survivors are lured to a military outpost after hearing a radio message claiming that the soldiers have a cure to the Rage virus and that their compound is a safe haven for survivors. And in a storytelling move that could have worked against itself, this franchise is intentionally up front with its social commentary, with the very first scene of the franchise clearly identifying and labeling the thematic problem as it names the virus that turns regular people into violent zombies Rage. So it comes as no surprise that Danny Boyle's 20-year-old 28 Days Later and its 2007 sequel 28 Weeks Later have a complex and biting relationship with the era of their release: a time of overt militarism, growing jingoism and global distrust. Zombie films have been consistently powerful tools for social commentary, using their uncanny violence to exaggerate and question humanity's failures, from racism to consumerism, xenophobia to misogyny and almost every other ill that plagues their zeitgeist. This article talks about events that some may find upsetting, including the mention of 9/11 and war.
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