100 Scariest Movie Moments: #100 28 Days Later

The plot of 28 Days Later: A man named Jim, played by Cillian Murphy wakes up to find England has been overrun by zombies. These aren't the traditional zombies, though. They're infected with the so-called “Rage Virus,” which makes them easier to kill (they're alive, anything that will kill a human will kill them), but at the same time, allows them to be fast, strong, and highly aggressive

Re-watching this movie, I found it interesting that the scariest scene is one that was not even highlighted in the 100 Scariest Movie Moments special. It was the opening scene in which a group of animal rights activists attempted to free chimps from a medical research facility. And a single researcher attempted to stop them, knowing what they were about to unleash. I'm uncertain if a hypothetical person who didn't know what this movie was about would be as terrified. But understanding that those activists were bringing about the apocalypse certainly gave me chills as the researcher screamed for them to stop, and then attempted to bludgeon the first one of them to have been bitten to death, knowing there was no other way to stop the infection.

There are several alternate endings to this movie. But the one that was chosen was the most unambiguously uplifting, with all three of the main characters who made it to the halfway point of the film surviving (two previous main characters having been killed off after being well-developed), and the zombie plague eventually dying of starvation (It was established earlier in the movie that this would almost certainly happen).

I find it interesting that, for all the complaining I've heard of happy-endings being tacked-on to otherwise depressing movies, this one works. This is most likely because the director always intended a happy ending, and thus the movie builds well to this point. In the original ending our protagonist Jim (Cillian Murphy) died, and his two companions, Selena and Hannah (Naomie Harris and Megan Burns), walked away. Danny Boyle originally filmed this scene to be bitter-sweet, giving the audience an idea that they would carry on and survive. But, too many audiences felt that they were marching to their deaths, causing Boyle to reject this ending.

Indeed, this movie would be ironically empty with a downer ending. While the movie is both terrifying and depressing, the protagonists throughout the film find ways to be smart without abandoning their humanity as we see numerous scenes of them having fun, eating, and joking around to remind us that they have something to live for. When we finally encounter a crazy band of Survivalist soldiers, led by Christopher Eccleston, they're portrayed not as smart, but as being downright crazy. The protagonists will kill anyone who’s infected in a heartbeat, but the soldiers have somehow developed the idea that they need to start raping any females to repopulate the human race effective immediately. And at one point a soldier points out that there's no way the virus could have possibly exited the UK, so humanity as a species is in absolutely no danger. He is completely ignored.

The lighter, more optimistic side of the film does nothing to make it less terrifying, as people we like are infected twice, and we know they have to die immediately. The film is scarier because the stakes are higher, and you feel that what happens to the characters actually matters.

There is not a single frame of this movie that is not glorious in both its horror, and its beauty.