Robert Lewis Professor Lynda Haas Writing 37 10/15/2013 Analysis of the Zombie Genre

A devastating virus escapes a British research facility after a group of animal activists release infected apes. Within twenty-eight days the country is overwhelmed and the few survivors must hold on to life by any means necessary. Jim, a bicycle courier, wakes from a coma he was in precisely Twenty-eight days after the first contamination and discovers that the United Kingdom is infested with the infected. After forming a group with Selena, Frank, and Hannah, they set out to find a military blockade. Little do they know, zombies are not the only their only concern. 28 Days Later belongs to several genres. It is said to be in the thriller genre because of its use of suspense. It is placed into horror genre because of the anxiety, fright, and distress it conveys to its audience. IMDb has also classified this text under the sci-fi genre possibly because of its post-apocalyptic setting. But most importantly, by looking at one important convention we can determine that this movie also falls into the zombie genre. Something that all zombies do, infected with a virus or risen from the dead, is eat the flesh of humans. While this universal convention is used, the zombies in 28 Days Later bring the aggressiveness of the zombie to a new level. These blood thirsty beasts stop at nothing to devour human flesh.

28 Days Later was directed by Academy Award winning Danny Boyle who is best known for his work in Slumdog Millionaire. It was released in the United Kingdom November of 2002, and later released in the United States June of 2003. This low budget film received a review rating of 7.3/10 on Rotten Tomatoes and made $45M in the Box Office making it very successful. Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland plumb the violence of the mind with slashing wit and shocking gravity. Happy nightmares. (Peter Travers of The Rolling Stone) A firstrate zombie movie. The best tribute I can offer is that it makes you want to go out directly afterward and down some expensive single-malt scotch. (Peter Rainer of New York Magazine.) A theme that is often used in the zombie genre is group survival versus individual survival. In the beginning Selena proclaims to Jim, if they slowed you down, Id leave you behind. Showing that in an apocalypse people resort back to their instincts to simply survive. Another underlying theme of 28 Days Later is the effect of Christianity and spirituality in society. In one scene, Jim walks into a church where the walls on stairwell read, REPENT, THE END IS EXTREMELY FUCKING NIGH. A reference to 1st Peter 4:7 which reads, The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. The zombie has been used for metaphors of consumerism in texts such as Dawn of the Dead. but this goes even deeper to say that because of our societys desire for material goods we are destined to a loud wake up call. Early in the text, Jim wakes from his accident induced coma to an abandon hospital, similar to what happens in The Walking Dead. Extremely confused, Jim leaves the hospital and begins walking around the eerily desolate city. This Ghost City, as tvtropes.org calls it, is an important zombie convention which highlights the sense of isolation. Noel Carroll, an expert

on horror, writes, Monsters are native to places outside of and/or unknown to the human world. Or, the creatures come from marginal, hidden, or abandon sites. (The Nature of Horror) The fear of unexplainable catastrophe is intensified when ravenous, blood thirsty zombies are added. Carroll later goes on to write, What appears to distinguish the horror story from mere stories with monsters, such as fairy tales, is the attitude of characters in the story to the monsters they chance upon. In works of horror, the human regards the monsters that they encounter as abnormal, as disturbances of the natural order (Carroll, The Nature of Horror) In the middle of this text, we discover something that differentiates the zombie genre from the horror genre. After being infected, Frank tells Hannah that he loves her, and then, knowing he has little time before he changes, tells her to stay away. As Frank changes into a Rage infected zombie, Selena hands Jim a weapon to kill Frank. Jim is given little time to change attitudes towards Frank. After all, Frank had saved Jim and Selenas lives earlier in the text. Because of this, Jim hesitates to kill the newly infected, but is saved by soldiers who shoot a multitude of rounds into the zombie who once was Frank. Throughout the text it is shown that the zombies in 28 Days Later are extremely aggressive compared to Romeros Night of the Living Dead zombies. At the beginning of the text, an animal activist releases an infected chimp which promptly bites her. She then quickly changes into a zombie and proceeds to infect the other activists and the chief scientist, who is attempting to kill her. Romeros zombies are slow moving and have power in their numbers while the zombies in 28 Days Later do not use their sheer numbers to kill the survivors. They are seen ferociously chasing, climbing, and hunting down the survivors. In conclusion, it is the change from an emotional human to a mindless blood thirsty monster that defines the zombie. Although there are differences in 28 Days Later it is by no

means an exclusion to the genre. It gives a point of origination that Romeros zombies did not have. This characteristic gives future writers something follow

Use: Jim uses a zombie to kill others. Soldiers more dangerous than the zombies. Other difference in 28 day later Think about selena and her aggressive. Mean military men.

Works Cited "28 Days Later..." IMDb. IMDb.com, 27 June 2002. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. Carroll, Noel. "The Nature of Horror." The Nature of Horror (1987): n. pag. Print. "Critic Reviews for 28 Days Later." Metacritic. N.p., n.d. Web. "Quotes." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2013. "Twenty-Eight Days Later." TvTropes. N.p., n.d. Web.