28 Days Later Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Maybe it's all the talk of Swine Flu flooding the airwaves that has me in a pandemic frame of mind, but when Erik asked us to think about some of our favorite summer movie trailers, my mind wandered from the obvious blockbusters and instead, I came up with Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later. Now, I've always been a staunch defender of 28 Days against what seemed to be a chorus of naysayers. Yes, I know; the theatrical ending is too upbeat (not for me, but I've got a pretty bleak outlook sometimes), it's not a proper zombie film, Cillian Murphy's 'Rambo' turn comes from left field, and the list goes on. But believe me when I tell you that there is nothing you can come up that I haven't already heard about why this film isn't all it's cracked up to be. So even though better men have tried (and failed) to convince me that this isn't some of the best work that Boyle has done, at least we can agree that it's a heck of a lot better than A Life Less Ordinary.

The international trailer for the horror had all of the trademarks of Boyle's style; great use of music, striking visuals, and it was creepy as hell. Boyle and Alex Garland's story of an infection running amok in England might not have been your typical summer release; it was shot on digital video, it had limited F/X, and the most recognizable face in the trailer was Christopher Eccleston. But, just watching this trailer again after all these years reminds me that it isn't always the splashy Hollywood productions that can turn out to be your summer's most memorable film.

(Trailer contains language that is NSFW.)

First, the obligatory Slumdog Millionaire endorsement. I saw it in Telluride, for which I am now grateful, but at the time I cursed the fates. Why? Because I couldn't buy another ticket and go see it again then and there. It opens tomorrow, November 12th, in a bunch of cities, and will trickle on out from there. It's rousing, and wonderful, and I can pretty much guarantee you'll love it.

The feel-frickin'-awesome movie of the year was directed by Danny Boyle, whose Millions hinted at his capacity for big-hearted fairy tales, but who is known for darker material. His biggest hit until a couple of weeks from now is the 2003 zombie horror flick 28 Days Later. He gave up the reins of the sequel, 28 Weeks Later, to talented Spaniard Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (whose Intacto was unjustly ignored six years previous), who wound up upstaging him with what was -- to my mind -- a vastly superior film.

The latest had been that up-and-coming horror director Paul Andrew Williams would be stepping behind the camera for the upcoming 28 Months Later. But now Boyle himself has thrown a wrench into that plan. Though he refused to discuss his idea for the third film, he told a table full of journalists that he'd like to return and direct it himself. "I'd certainly like to... I feel the idea is quite a strong idea, and it could well involve directing it. Yeah, absolutely."

We'll see what happens after Slumdog earns Boyle his first Oscar nods. I actually have faith that he won't abandon genre films -- he's so dang good at them (though I think his best showcase in that respect is actually Sunshine). I still prefer Fresnadillo's take on the 28 franchise, but on the other hand Danny Boyle is my new hero. Mixed feelings.

Yesterday we learned that a bunch of Disney movies will be available for free online, each for a limited time, this summer. Now, because everyone wants in on the streaming video game, Fox Searchlight has also put up three of its own films for free. Sideways, 28 Days Later and Quills can now be watched in full on the studio's website or on Hulu, which is hosting the videos. Hulu, known best as one of the premier streaming sites to watch TV episodes, is also hosting some movies from Searchlight parent Twentieth Century Fox, as well as from Lionsgate, Universal, MGM, Salient Media and FEARnet.

To me, the interesting thing about Searchlight's three available titles is that they're each R-rated, yet neither Fox nor Hulu requires proof of age to view the videos. The same goes for a few other titles offered on Hulu, but Searchlight's crop seems particularly adult in content. When I first saw the press release, I immediately thought of it as the antithesis to Disney's offerings. Of course, I don't mind who sees these movies. I'm having more difficulty getting over the idea of watching R-rated material with "limited commercial interruption." The ads make me feel like I'm watching a movie on network television, which of course would only broadcast films reedited or a general audience. But then suddenly I realize I'm not watching network-friendly versions when suddenly I'm seeing full-frontal male nudity in Quills. It's a little disorienting.

What do you think? Should Hulu have the same kind of censored cuts that the networks have to show? Or should these videos at least come with age-restrictive blockers?

In case you weren't sure, Zombie Strippers is exactly what it sounds like: a horror comedy about zombified strippers. And like most zombie movies, it has political subtext, though you don't have to worry about it being headier than something titled Zombie Strippers should be. Sure, it claims to be based loosely on Eugène Ionesco's classic absurdist play Rhinoceros and, sure, it features allusions to a number of philosophers, including Camus and Sartre, but really it's dumb and silly and a heck of a good time. Particularly if you're anything but sober. And if you're just looking for a grindhouse sort of guilty pleasure to pass the time.

Zombie Strippers opens with a montage that sets the scene: it's sometime in the near future, and Bush has just been reelected to his fourth term. Already, we know this movie will be a complete farce, but the ludicrous exposition continues, explaining that government scientists have developed a virus that allows soldiers in Iraq to continue fighting after they're killed. Yes, these super soldiers are zombies, a minor twist on Joe Dante's anti-Bush short Homecoming, which was one of the more critically celebrated episodes of the cable series Masters of Horror, and which featured Iraq War casualties rising from the dead in order to cast their vote against Bush's reelection.

Eating has become more and more difficult in the 21st century. Food isn't always the wondrous, romantic thing depicted in most movies. Recently we have learned about MSG, GMOs, polyunsaturated fats, trans-fats and the presence of the horrid "high fructose corn syrup" in just about everything. (It's in bread. Bread!) Sales of organic foods have increased drastically, and everyone has become an ingredient-reader and an amateur foodie. Now multiply this by about fifteen and you've got Thanksgiving dinner. Who's a vegetarian? Who's a vegan? Who's on the Atkins diet? Does putting the stuffing inside the turkey actually make it poisonous? Were those slivered almonds made on machinery that also processed peanuts? Who's allergic? What's the difference between yams and sweet potatoes? To get yourself prepared, I've assembled a chronological list of food cautionary tales, or hard culinary lessons learned.

Soylent Green (1973)
Is there anyone out there who doesn't yet know the secret component of everyone's favorite future foodstuff? If not, watching this film, directed by Richard Fleischer, will make you want to read the ingredients more often.

The Phantom of Liberty (1974)
The key scene in Luis Bunuel's film takes place at a dinner party. Guests gather around the table, pull down their pants and sit on toilets. They talk, rifle through magazines and otherwise engage in casual conversation. One guest rises, politely excuses himself and shyly asks for the dining room. Once inside, he shuts the door and begins eating. That's really funny, and in the joke, Bunuel asks why we perform one bodily function with great dignity in public and another with shame in private. As humans, our beliefs and behavior are utterly arbitrary. Try not to think about that at the dinner table.

Zombies appeared in movies early on, in White Zombie (1932), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), The Last Man on Earth (1964), and -- to some extent -- Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959). But the infectious, flesh-eating, undead creatures we know today originated in George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). No other horror movie was such a cornerstone, breaking new ground for its time, establishing the hard and fast rules for an entire subgenre and remaining a much-copied source nearly 40 years later. On top of all this, it's actually a great film, and hardly dated at all. When I first saw it, all alone in a dark room late at night, it gave me the shivers. But it also gave me food for thought.

Many have studied the complex relationship between the film's human characters, all trapped in an abandoned house trying to survive the night. Barbara (Judith O'Dea), after losing her brother to a zombie, becomes nearly catatonic. She's like the child of this twisted family. Ben (Duane Jones) is the leader, and though Romero apparently hadn't written the role for a black man, he evokes echoes of the Civil Rights movement that was brewing at the time. Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman) is white, middle-class America, with a wife, Helen (Marilyn Eastman) and a daughter (Kyra Schon). And Tom (Keith Wayne) and Judy (Judith Ridley) are typical teenagers, hoping to get married and settle down. It's easy to see all kinds of social commentary within this group of characters and their behavior, but even without all that, the film works very simply as a dramatic clash of personalities.

With "geek" stuff like comics, sci-fi, and horror taking over the mainstream, ComicCon has become one of the biggest film events of the year. The studios really take it seriously, and this should be an excellent week for major film announcements. Today, the fairly new studio Fox Atomic, an offshoot of Fox targeting the 17-24 demographic, announced what festival goers can expect from them this year. It looks like their biggest push is for the upcoming revenge thriller Death Sentence. There will be an online sweepstakes to win a 1969 Ford Mustang featured in the film, starting when ComicCon opens its doors tomorrow. If you can't make it to the festival you can enter at the official movie website, http://deathsentencemovie.com, up until the film is released on August 31st. Death Sentence stars Kevin Bacon as a man out to avenge his son's death, and co-stars John Goodman and Kelly Preston. James Wan (Saw) directed. Bacon, co-star Garrett Hedlund and Wan will be signing autographs at ComicCon this Saturday at 3PM.

Also, be on the lookout for a contest to win a Fender Stratocaster guitar signed by the cast of the upcoming comedy The Rocker. You can read more about that movie here and here, it tells "the story of a failed, over-the-hill drummer who is given a second chance at fame." Rainn Wilson plays the drummer and Christina Applegate will be his love interest. Only in the movies, folks! Fox Atomic is understandably putting a big focus on their graphic novel publishing arm at ComicCon as well. Signings and giveaways are scheduled for Joe Harris and Stuart Moore's The Nightmare Factory, due out on September 4th, as well as their film-based graphic novels -- 28 Days Later: The Aftermath by Steve Niles and The Hills Have Eyes: The Beginning by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. It looks like just about all of the artists and authors will be in attendance. We've got all sorts of ComicCon news, announcements, and goodness coming your way from San Diego (which, of course, is German for "whale's vagina") all this week and through the weekend, so stick around and stay classy.

I'm starting to feel a bit bad for Eli Roth, because I don't think he deserves all the negative vibes being thrown his way. Granted, I haven't seen any of his films, but I respect the fact that he's clawed his way to the top and, at the same time, managed to make films his way. He understands the business better than anyone (having worked practically every Hollywood job there is), knows which battles to fight ... and almost always wins. Unfortunately for him, Hostel: Part II arrived at a time when R-rated horror films (specifically those in the "torture porn" genre) were beginning to cool off. Add to that the fact that they took a huge chance releasing it right smack in the thick of summer blockbuster season -- coupled with a ton of illegal downloads -- and it was simply destined to fail. But taking a hit and moving on to bigger and better things was not in the cards for Roth, as a number of film personalities have taken cheap shots at the guy for no apparent reason.

The latest in a long line of folks eager to say something bad about Roth is 28 Days Later director Danny Boyle. Out promoting his latest flick Sunshine, Boyle told The NY Daily News that he isn't too fond of Roth's films. "His movies aren't even particularly well done," he says. "They're not even scary. They're horrible, but that's not scary. It's not suspense. And if you watch my films in detail, there's actually not a lot of violence in them. You get numb with violence very quickly." Of course, The Daily News does not provide the question which led to this answer -- I can't imagine the guy just began ripping Roth a new one out of the blue. But I am surprised to hear Boyle (a director I admire, and one who also happens to be a very nice guy) blatantly knock a fellow director. It makes me wonder whether there was ever any bad blood between the two.

Following the Hostel: Part II box office meltdown, Roth has decided to take a breather, recently saying that he won't be directing Cell (the Steven King adaptation reportedly scheduled to begin shooting later this summer) anytime soon. He added: "... I most likely will take the rest of the year to write my other projects. Which means I wouldn't shoot until the spring and you wouldn't see a film directed by me in the cinemas until at least next fall." What say you -- does Boyle have a point? Or is it unfair for all these people to knock a guy who's just trying to give fans what they want?

The horror debate has been simmering for a while now, not just between movie bloggers and fans, but amongst bigger names in the biz. Earlier this month, Joe Carnahan threw up a big ol' rant about torture porn on his website. Then Stephen King added his two cents to the discussion, and said of a BTK Killer film*: "It makes me feel creepy just to think about it. It's almost like exploiting murder for the sake of murder." Finally, the other day, Ryan posted about Eli Roth's MySpace rant that R-rated horror was in danger. Now the simmer is becoming a full-fledged boil, and we've got news about the increasing backlash.

First, the Hills Have Eyes' studio Fox Atomic is apparently taking a step back from the horror biz. B-D says that the only horror flick that is currently being made by the company is a PG-13 remake of The Entity -- an interesting choice for youth-friendly fare, as it's a supposed-to-be-true story about a woman tormented and sexually molested by an invisible demon. BD speculates that no one should hold their breath to see the next 28 Days Later installment, which was planned to work up to 28 Years Later.

But that's not all: B-D also points to a recent chat between MTV and Brittany Snow, the Hairspray actress who just shot a remake to Prom Night -- or rather, a re-invention: "It's just taking the same name as Prom Night the original, but it's a different script. It's actually more in the vein of Fear, with Reese Witherspoon and Mark Wahlberg." Yeah, yeah. But here is the kicker: "It's more of a thriller. There's no blood, guts or gore." On the one hand, I could ask why they'd bother to refer to it as a remake of the 80's slasher film, when there's no blood and an entirely different script. On the other -- is this backlash going overboard? And what does this mean? Will the victims fall all old-school cowboy style, with a grimace and an exaggerated collapse?

I'm all for a radical shakeup and rethinking of horror -- in a way where women aren't tortured captives, and with blood and guts that's a little more subdued. Or heck, revive the heyday of fake blood and guts. Instead of insisting everything looks completely real, there's something fun about the Kill Bill 'geysers of blood' style of gore.

*Thanks to Anthony for the correction. The quote wasn't directly about Captivity.

Though most probably know him as "that guy in the background who always looks familiar," Christopher Marquette is finally getting top billing; the Hollywood Reporter tells us that he's just signed on to star in a new horror-comedy from writer-director Kyle Rankin called Infestation. For those who obsessed over the HBO show Project Greenlight before it moved over to Bravo (why is everyone looking at me?), you might remember Rankin as one-half of the directing team that took on The Battle of Shaker Heights. However, what you might not know about Rankin (and his disappearing partner-in-crime Efram Potelle) is that prior to Shaker Heights (and after), the two wrote and directed a couple of very cool shorts -- one of which is eerily similar to this new flick announced today.

They're calling this one 28 Days Later meets Shaun of the Dead, as it centers on some office schlub (Marquette) who wakes up to find himself wrapped in webbing and cocooned to the wall of his office. After realizing that giant insects have begun to take over the world, our hero must band together with a "ragtag group of strangers" to fight for their survival. Back in 2003, Rankin and Potelle directed a very awesome short called They Came to Attack Us; in that pic, some stoner dude is told that he must keep a valuable orb and protect it from the aliens that are invading. Since Cinematical is all about giving you more bang for your buck, you can check out that short here. Heavy Duty Entertainment is producing Infestation along with Icon Prods., who are also handling worldwide distribution. Personally, I think the idea sounds pretty fun, and Marquette proved he can pull off comedy fairly well when he played Ryan Reynolds' perverted little brother in Just Friends. Sure, the bar is set pretty high when you compare a project to Shaun of the Dead, but the comparison alone has me extremely interested. How about you?