#5 - 28 Days Later (2002)

28 Days Later (2002)

(dir. Danny Boyle)

A small group of animal rights activists break into a secure laboratory to free the test subjects being held there, which are unfortunately chimps who are infected with a horrible horrible disease called "rage". Oops. 28 days later, a bicycle courier named Jim wakes up from a coma in a hospital and finds himself completely alone. Wandering the empty streets of London, he eventually finds some people in a church, but they are all either dead or infected, and he is attacked. He is rescued by two survivors, Selena and Mark, who fill him in on what has happened over the last four weeks. The news isn't good.

Zombie movies were huge in the 70's and 80's, but they had all but died out by the time this film came around. I mean, what was the last good zombie film before this one? Dead Alive in 1992? 28 Days Later, along with Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, helped to breathe new life into the subgenre, and for better or worse brought zombies into mainstream pop culture.  This remains one of the best modern zombie films, and has been imitated endlessly (The Walking Dead cribs a heck of a lot from this movie).

I think this is also the first use of "running zombies". Instead of the slow shambling undead ghouls we are used to, the zombies are fast and vicious. Some people are adamant that they aren't zombies at all, because they are technically just infected living humans instead of reanimated corpses. But let's be real - for all intents and purposes, they are zombies. Also, who cares?

This is essential viewing for anyone remotely interested in horror movies. It's one of the all-time great zombie films, and it does just about everything right. I wish Danny Boyle would make more horror movies!