Monday, September 23, 2013

5. 28 Days Later

                28 Days Later is another look at the idea of how the human race could end. In this scenario humans are no longer humans, but are now zombies. For now the outbreak has been contained to England. This movie is all about how humans survive when they are no longer on top.
                The scariest part of this movie isn’t the zombies though. It’s what the survivors do. Any women that the survivors find are captured. They’re then forced into basically sex slavery as a way to repopulate the country. Anyone who objects is instantly killed. Also one of the soldiers has been infected by the virus. Instead of doing the humane thing and killing the guy to put him out of his misery and to protect him from spreading it, they chain him up out back to study him. The movie is about zombies but I think the virus also infects those who aren’t zombies. It infects them by turning them into a darker version of themselves.
                Zombies in general are interesting from this point of view. Society has moved away from the Night of the Living Dead type of zombies lately. Gone are the days of slow walking zombies just wanting brains. No more do zombies come out of the ground as undead, reanimated corpses. In this movie the zombies are still alive. They could be considered human still. Technically they are human, just infected with a very strong and fast acting virus. They still have a brain and strong motor functions because deep down they’re still human. This has been the new trend in movies. Make zombies evolve from viruses rather than from magic.
                The most interesting part is where do you draw the line at still being human? These zombies are humans still. They’re just infected. Sick humans are usually considered still humans. These humans are so sick though that the virus has taken complete control of them. It’s almost as if the virus has become the active personality and the human, while still technically alive, is now dormant. If that human part is dormant are they still human? Or has the virus evolved them to a posthuman stage of rage zombie?

               
Works Cited

Boyle, Danny, dir. 28 Days Later. CD-ROM. 

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