28 Days Later is a zombie movie and I’m tired of pretending it’s not

The creators of 28 days later I’ve always resisted describing the film as a zombie film, but come on – it has all the defining characteristics of a zombie film. I’ve always been a big fan of the zombie genre; I grew up obsessed with Undeadwatched the classic by George A. Romero Dead movies over and over, and I over and over again The last of us games dozens of times. Danny Boyle and company’s resistance to calling 28 days later a zombie movie reeks of snobbish elitism, as if they are ashamed to be associated with such a vulgar genre.

This reminds me of how writers of The penguin changed Oswald Cobblepot’s name to Oz Cobb to avoid the comic book source material. Boyle is currently working on a long-awaited sequel to 28 days later called 28 years later. According to a casting call, they are looking for marathon runners, sprint cyclists, triathlon competitors, and other high-level athletes to appear as infected in the film (via The Yorkshire Post). It seems that 28 years laterThe infected will do some wild things – so why doesn’t Boyle call them zombies?

28 Days Later has all the defining characteristics of a zombie film

The only difference between 28 Days Later and Night Of The Living Dead is the origin of the zombie apocalypse

The modern zombie as we know it was defined by Romero’s work Night of the Living Dead. When a large portion of the human population turns into ravenous, flesh-eating monsters, a disparate group of survivors band together to fend off the monstrous hordes and stay alive in the frightening new world. This plot summary could be used interchangeably to describe Night of the Living Dead or 28 days later. 28 days later follows all the hallmarks of a Romero zombie film, only in a British setting as opposed to Romero’s home country of America.

The only difference between Night of the Living Dead and 28 days later is the origin of the zombie apocalypse. In Night of the Living DeadCorpses mysteriously rise from their graves to feast with the living. In 28 days latera rabies virus is released from a laboratory. But it seems ridiculous to say that this small difference puts 28 days later in a totally different genre category. If it looks like a zombie movie and has all the tropes and conventions of a zombie movie, then maybe it is a zombie movie.

The survivors hide in various isolated locations to hide from the infected, like in a Romero film, and the infected always manage to find them, like in a Romero film. The debate over whether or not 28 days later It’s a zombie movie it seems as arbitrary as the debate over whether Die Hard It’s a Christmas movie. But while it’s debatable what counts as a Christmas movie, it’s not really debatable what constitutes a zombie movie – and 28 days later has more than enough to qualify as a zombie film.

If 28 days later the infected cannot be cured, it doesn’t matter that they are not technically dead

They’re not technically “the walking dead,” but they could very well be

Those infected in 28 days later They are not undead, because they were never dead to begin with. But if they can never be cured of the rabies virus and are stuck in their infected form forever, then it doesn’t really matter that they aren’t dead – they better be. Being dead isn’t the only thing that makes a zombie a zombie. Zombies roam the land, looking for others to infect with their curse, and are a commentary on an ignorant society. 28 days laterTed’s zombies have all these things; they are simply not dead.

This is similar to the zombies in The last of us franchise, which are also strategically called “infected” instead of “zombies.“They’re not technically dead; they had their bodies and minds taken over by an aggressive fungus. When it bites unsuspecting survivors, the fungus is simply expanding its reach. But the people inside won’t come back. They will continue to hang around, infecting people, unable to control their bodies, until their bodies are no longer useful to the fungus, at which point they will establish themselves somewhere and grow in the environment.

28 days later, the infected don’t do anything different from other zombies on screen

Yes, they’re fast – but that’s not unheard of in a zombie movie

There is nothing that 28 days laterThe zombies in the group do what other zombies cannot. At least in The last of usthose infected transform into things that have never been seen before, such as clickers, bloaters and the dreaded Rat King. The only thing that does 28 days laterThe different thing about zombies is that they are fast. Romero’s zombies were typically slow; they lingered and crawled through the streets and it only really became a big threat in large numbers. In 28 days laterZombies can run, which makes it even more exciting when survivors are running away from them.

But 28 days later didn’t invent fast zombies. They could previously be seen in the Peter Jackson film Living DeadDan O’Bannon Return of the Living Deadand the Resident Evil games. Of course, 28 days later popularized fast zombies – they were later seen in I am a legend, World War Zand the bright Train to Busan – but they existed long before that. 28 days later doesn’t do enough to revolutionize the traditional zombie film (or the traditional zombie) to not be considered one.

28 Days Later Writer Confirms It’s a Zombie Movie (Even Though Cillian Murphy Disagrees)

Alex Garland says 28 Days Later is “pretty much” a zombie movie

Although Boyle has regularly denied that 28 days later is a zombie film, his fellow filmmakers have their own take on the debate. The film’s star, Cillian Murphy, agrees with Boyle. The actor said that when he was making the film, he never thought of it as a zombie movie. Because they were filming at the time of the SARS outbreak and there was a lot of talk in the news about airborne rabies, Murphy felt like they were making a film exploring that zeitgeist. He never watched Romero’s zombie films and didn’t realize how “sanctified” they were.

The film’s writer, Alex Garland, has a different opinion. He disagrees with Boyle and Murphy and believes that this is, in fact, a zombie film. He said he is aware that there has been a lot of discussion about whether or not 28 days later It’s a zombie movie and, To put an end to this discussion, he simply said: “It’s a zombie movie.” He noted that because of the rabies virus element, there may be “technical discrepancies” which disqualifies the infected from being classic zombies, but “they are practically zombies.”

Source: The Yorkshire Post