Human, All Too Human

An unkillable zombie franchise wants to talk about civilization now.

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AT THE HEART OF Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later stands an eerie monument: a tower of skulls serving as a memorial to the dead. It’s a grim sight but one designed to stir up compassion as well. “There are so many dead, infected and uninfected alike—because they are alike,” says its caretaker, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who in the years following Britain’ transformation into a zombie-filled hellscape became a gruff, buff, and somewhat daffy hermit single-handedly holding off armies of monsters with weapons, guile, and medical know-how. When someone dies, Kelson burns off their skin, polishes their skull, and places it on the tower. This memorial speaks to the constant presence of death, but it also asks us to consider the immense loss these humans have endured. “Every skull is a set of thoughts,” Kelson says. “These sockets saw, and these jaws swallowed.” People think he’s a lunatic, but maybe you have to be a bit mad to hold on to your humanity in a world like this.

One could say the same for the world beyond the screen. Those lusting for cool monster action and genre thrills would do well to remember that the original 28 Days Later, directed by Boyle and written by Alex Garland, wasn't that much of a zombie flick to begin with. Those infected by the “rage virus” lurked in the shadows and popped up to set in motion the extremes of behavior that were that film’s true focus. Boyle and Garland had little interest in face-eating monsters chasing people; they wanted to depict how the remnants of humanity reacted to the devastation around them. Shot on relatively inexpensive digital video cameras and released in 2002 to audiences still reeling from the aftermath of September 11, the film was a masterpiece, but maybe the scariest thing about it was the title: 28 days had been all it took for society to fall apart. The slightly more genre-suited sequel from 2007,