Celluloid Confetti

There can be no question that Zombie movies are among the finest films ever made.

The lurching, ever massing menace of an army of undead, combined with the increasing claustraphobia and growing panic of the remaining survivors, is perfectly suited to the language of cinema.

(If only zombies had been in vogue back when F. W. Murnau or Fritz Lang were making movies! The Second World War might never have happened!)

Of course, the whole beauty of the Zombie aesthetic is lost if they start running round like kids chasing an icecream van, which is why Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) raised so many hackles among the sepulchral legions of the George Romero fanbase.

(But, in fair defence of what was a genuinely gripping and well-made British horror movie, the fiendish protagonists of 28 Days Later were Infected, not Zombies, and were therefore un-dead only in the very literal sense of still being alive, albeit rabid.)

Anyway, this is the summer of sequels, so the follow up to 28 Days later is upon us. Rather than calling it 28 Days Later 2, someone decided to title it 28 Weeks Later, which is fine, unless they decide to make more, in which case the laws of arithmetic will rapidy propel the storytelling far into the distant future, until it resembles a horrifically bloodthirsty live-action version of The Jetsons.

This would be a crying shame, because the great thing about both 28 __ later films is their terrific, and unsettling, use of familiar locations. 28 Days saw a dazed Cillian Murphy stagger round a deserted Picadilly Circus, and 28 Weeks reveals even more of the capital, from The Isle of Dogs, to Greenwich and Regents Park.

The film itself is a thoroughly worthy sequel is an enjoyable mix of shock scares, suspense, and gorily contrived set-pieces, let down by some cheap plot contrivances and heavy-handed anti-Americanism (is there anything that goes disastrously wrong that can’t be used a metaphor for the invasion of Iraq?). And despite posters which show 2 kids on the run, making the film look like a kind of latter-day Escape to Witch Mountain (1975), it’s even more brutal, gory and just-plain-nasty than its predecessor.

But what stood out for me was the haunting vision of a deserted London. British cities are often glimpsed through the grimy windows of kitchen sink dramas, but they are rarely celebrated in the same way as New York or Paris. In 28 Weeks Later, Spanish Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo turns his wide lens onto the streets of London, and it has rarely looked better.

In short, Shock-junkies and students of architecture should definitely check it out. Zombie aficionados should also attend, if they can leave their indignation at the door.