Three animal rights activists sneak into a laboratory, wishing the free the captive animals inside. The enter a large room and are horrified to discover not only a number of chimps in clear cases, but at the far end of the room another is strapped to a table and surrounded by video monitors depicting scenes of violence. The invaders, two men and a woman, survey the area in horror while taking pictures of what they see, and preparing to release the chimps from their tiny prisons. The lab technician and the activists see each other at the same time. An attempt to sound the alarm is thwarted by the two men, but the lab technician is frantic, begging them not to let the chimps out, that they’re infected with something in their blood and saliva that is highly contagious. When asked what they’re infected with, the terrified technician says only one word, “rage”. This doesn’t convince the activists, who go ahead and break open one of the tanks anyway, the girl looks in at the entrance to see the chimp spring into life, lunging towards her. She falls to the ground with the chimp biting and clawing at her, the three men kill the chimp but the damage has been done. The girl starts to vomit blood, attacking one of the other activists and producing more bloody puke over his face. She turns to look at the other two, a deranged look on her face and her eyes blood red, mucho screaming follows as we go to black.

28 days later...

A man named Jim wakes up in a hospital bed. Naked and confused, he hauls himself up and goes to investigate, finding no people, just a sorry mess of equipment and a gurney strewn across the floor. Dressing himself in green hospital pyjamas he walks down the hall, calling out in the hope of finding another human being. Yet there is nobody around, so he takes advantage of the cans of Pepsi (well, making movies isn’t cheap you know) lying beneath a damaged vending machine, throwing a few into a bag and heading out of the building. Still nobody about as he walks above the ambulance bay and onto the empty streets. This is London only not as most know it, totally devoid of any life, litter and garbage grace the streets. Jim walks through the eerie scene, even picking up a bundles of money from a discarded pile, then happening upon a monument that has been totally covered in notes and pictures. On closer inspection, they are in fact hand-written tributes written for friends and family members, a further indication that something dreadful has happened.

He discovers a church and enters, the wall next to the staircase has been written upon in large letters: “THE END IS REALLY F**KING NIGH”. He climbs the stairs and they open up onto a balcony that overlooks another section of the church, but instead of a congregation there are a mass of people spread across the floor and furniture, impossible to see if they were alive and dead. Jim emits a nervous “hello?” and a couple of the people move, turning to stare at him open mouthed but strangely vacant-looking. A door opens nearby and a priest emerges, his head bowed and making odd choking noises as he staggers towards the man. The priest raises his head to reveal blood red eyes and makes to attack Jim, who knocks the him down and runs as he sees people from the room below running to intercept him. Some of the inhabitants charge after him making suitably inhuman noises, when two masked figures appear with Molotov cocktails, attacking the man’s pursuers and blowing up a near-by garage while they’re at it. Jim flees with the two others and once safe, the masked duo reveal themselves to be normal people named Mark and Selena. Jim explains that he was in a traffic accident 28 days before, and while unconscious the virus released by the animal rights activists has swamped the population. TV and radio are more or less dead, and apart from a few survivors all that are left are what have become known as Infected, people contaminated by the virus, that puts them in a permanent state of psychotic, murderous rage. With infection all too easy, and a threat from an unrelenting, quick and driven foe, how will Jim and the others survive, and will there be a world left for them to survive in?

Boyle has done it again, leaving his recent mainstream flirtations behind him and finding another genre to bring his talents to. The story is perhaps not the most original, Alex Garland has written a taut and shocking, yet also very thoughtful piece with a number of alarming revelations from early on into the movie, so much so that I’ve spared detailing most of the plot as its best to watch it ‘cold’. The cinematic influences seem clear, there’s a healthy dose of the Romero Living Dead pessimism, a bleak world where our heroes are hopelessly outnumbered against the evil, single-mindedly murderous foe. None of Romero’s brainless shambling zombies are to be found here, there are far closer to the eponymous creatures from Lambero Bava’s Demons films, just as fast and aware as normal people with the additional relentless psychotic rage, but also don’t require any special technique or weak spot in order to kill them. If anything though, their speed and dogged determination to kill any uninfected make them a far more terrifying prospect than any shambling bag of bones, while it causes some suspension of disbelief to imagine a shuffling zombie could get so close to someone without being noticed, Infected are quick, lunging in from out of nowhere. As the film goes on though another tried and trusted plot device is used, the question of whether the human beings left could truly be bigger monsters than any of the Infected, and the lengths some will go to in order to survive.

Though a touch derivative in places, the same cannot be said for the execution and delivery of the material. Using digital video rather than conventional film, the film has an odd primitive graininess to it, almost as if the events are truly being documented in a time where society has collapsed and there are few resources to hand. The scenes where Jim wanders through a deserted Central London are especially effective, anybody familiar with any scenes of London will know it seems to be constantly busy, bustling with people. However to see the capital totally empty is an eerie stirring experience, enhanced by the gradual build of the film’s soundtrack, which starts as a quiet guitar strum and builds up to a climax as he reaches the memorial to the many dead. It’s superbly done and one of my favourite scenes from any movie this year. Boyle also uses editing extremely effectively, especially for a couple of times to give the viewers an alarming preview of an impending Infected onslaught, a quick shot of some people running from a near-by wood or a quick point of view shot of Jim from the end of his garden, and then we’re thrown headlong into the middle of a disturbing and ferocious attack. The acting is almost entirely excellent (except for one glaringly obvious exception) featuring mainly little-known but experienced actors, especially notable are Cillian Murphy as Jim and Naomie Harris as Selena. They both play their characters superbly and have great chemistry, their characters have been written with enough depth, which is translated through their performances expertly, that I feel it adds another dimension to the scares, fear for the characters you’ve come to like and associate with.

If there’s anything to complain about in the movie, I’d have to bring up the ending. Now for anybody who’s seen it they might think I’m being extremely morbid, but I didn’t find the movie anywhere near depressingly pessimistic enough. For those who haven’t seen it I’ll try not to spoil it, but considering the grim tone of much of the movie, and some of the earlier plot points, the ending didn’t go the way I expected and though many will be pleased, by the end I actually wanted to leave the cinema depressed. Maybe there's just a nasty little nihilistic streak in me.

While elements of the plot are rather similar to other films of this ilk, such as Romero’s zombie trilogy and a host of others, the compelling performances and the stylish and often very frightening way it was shot meant that any lack of originality was overshadowed by the excellent presentation of the material. An excellent piece of intelligent horror, which I think will be a very (un?)pleasant surprise for many.