The trailer for 28 Weeks Later looks incredible. The movie seems all about the scrubbing-down and repopulation of London after the zombie apocalypse. From the trailer, it looks like the movie has a sophisticated take on the politics, sociology, and logistics of how this might happen. I’m really interested in seeing how they’ll do this. One of the reasons I so loved Children of Men is how they handled the setting and the sociology. Somehow it felt like a real apocalypse, not a Hollywood mockup.
Of course the problem is that 28 Weeks Later is a zombie movie, so it all goes horribly wrong and lots of people end up getting eaten by zombies. (And unless I miss my guess, I’m betting the plague spreads to America at the end of the movie, since after all, we can’t end up right back where we started.) This is all bad news for me and my pedagogical interests, because zombie movies scare the crap out of me. Also, retching in the theater is not a good way to endear oneself to the other patrons.
The next best thing is for someone to go see this movie for me and tell me what it’s like. Here I have a secret weapon: my friend Shauna, who knows more about makeup and fashion and whatnot than nearly any of my female friends — and who just a couple of years ago discovered that she loves zombie movies. She’s now seen almost every zombie flick from Night of the Living Dead on up, and she knows the zombie canon far better than I do. Or even you do. Yes you! Really.
So. I’m deploying my friend the ex-cheerleader to see this zombie movie for me because I’m too scared to go. Anyone got a problem with that? The only fly in the ointment is that I’m not sure she’ll be happy with the whole taking-a-notebook thing and the writing-a-book-report thing. Sometimes you’ve just got to call in those friendship chits.
Did you see 28 Days Later, the original? Alex Garland (who wrote the novel the Beach) did the screenplay for it. It might be one of my favorite horror movies ever. There’s obviously zombies and it *was* scary, but it was all about people and had some subtle politics in it. If you end up seeing 28 Weeks Later, I’d cautiously recommend it to you — I’m not sure it scared me anymore than Children of Men did — though you may not want to watch it alone.
I didn’t see *28 Days Later*, but I read a number of reviews about it. I just can’t handle scary movies unless they’re actually comedies. *Shaun of the Dead* was okay, for example.
Xta is a zombie-movie buff, too.
28 Days Later was excellent (but scary).
Shaun of the Dead was irritatingly filmed; I don’t much like shaky-cam. (And it makes Xta motion sick.)
I did enjoy 28 Days Later. But I really do not want to watch movies like that more than once every 2 years or so.
On another topic: if you, Evan, have no problem getting links into your feed, why the hell can’t the big guns over at Slashdot do the same? How lame are they? I have to click through to their web page in order to see the links. Hmmm, ad revenue?
Wow, that is lame. Particularly because they *have* figured out the advanced technology required to embed ads directly in their feeds.
Maybe Slashdot is just so proud of their sweet web design that they just can’t bear the thought of users not clicking through? You occasionally will hear people voice this complaint about feeds, but I had understood that this line of thinking was entirely confined to the black-turtleneck-and-horned-rimmed-glasses set.
Yikes, I got a shout-out and didn’t come across it until now? I’m losing my mojo. Evan, I would be honored to see the movie and give you my full analysis. I can even wear my zombie cheerleader costume. (get it, ex-cheerleader???)
You have a zombie cheerleader costume?! I think I would actually buck up and go see the movie if you showed up in that. Just don’t mind me if I’m curled up in a fetal ball during the scary parts…