1 Lani Chung The Ethics of the Apocalypse Nora Lambrecht Assignment 2.3 October 8, 2013 Assignment 2.

3 28 Days Later is a 2002 film directed by Danny Boyle that follows the experiences of Jim as he fights for survival against the masses of people infected by the Rage virus in a necropolisturned Britain. The film begins with a group of animal activists who are infected by the Rage virus, causing them to exhibit murderous rage. After 28 days, Jim wakes up in a deserted hospital and wanders the streets of London. He has his first encounter with the infected in a church after which he meets two other survivors named Selena and Mark. After Mark is infected and killed, Jim and Selena meet Frank and his daughter Hannah in their abandoned apartment. The group decides to head toward Manchester in response to a radio broadcast claiming to have an answer to the infection (28 Days Later). Once at the empty blockade, Frank is infected and shot by hidden soldiers who take the others back to their compound. Soon, Jim and Selena realize that the soldiers want to rape the females and thus try to escape. However, Jim is captured and taken to the forest for execution while the girls are prepared for rape. Jim manages to get back to the compound and saves the girls by battling off the infected and the soldiers though he gets shot. Selena rushes Jim to the hospital and takes care of his wound until 28 days pass and the three survivors lay out a banner reading hello in hopes of being saved by a plane overhead. In the film review 28 Days Later: A Horror to Sit Through, Ann Hornaday asserts her thoughts regarding Danny Boyles film 28 Days Later. She critiques the overly violent and aesthetically unpleasing nature of the film, along with its lack of metaphorical meaning which causes her to claim that Boyle has created nothing more than a disposable movie (Hornaday). In addition, she also expresses her discontent with the cinematographyas the movie was filmed

2 on digital video due to budget concernsand with the lack of underlying social or political metaphors beyond the idea that anger is bad for people and other living things (Hornaday). She concludes by remarking that 28 Days Later is detestable, not just because its action is so vile or its technique so crude, but because its moral imagination is so impoverished (Hornaday). Just as Hornaday claims, 28 Days Later is indeed unrelentingly grim, unremittingly gross, and unforgivably unattractive (Hornaday). The film includes a variety of disturbing scenes that are both unappealing and difficult to watch. This raises the question of what message Boyle meant to convey through his film and its excessive amount of violence. In opposition to Hornadays subsequent and unsubstantiated claim that [Danny Boyles] cardinal point seems to be that anger is bad for people and other living things, I will argue that although it may be true that the danger associated with emotions of rage was a message that Boyle wanted to emphasize through his violence-filled film, it wouldnt be completely accurate to assert that it was his cardinal theme. There are other important underlying thematic aspects of the film that Hornaday failed to recognize in her analysis of which I will identify and describe in this essay. In doing so, I will offer a better interpretation of the array of themes and messages that were intended for portrayal through Danny Boyles 28 Days Later.