To congratulate a horror film for "aging well" is a loaded compliment: when a scary movie becomes more relevant as the years go by, it is a testament to the success of the film and the failures of civilization. It would hurt the legacy of the zombie genre's inaugural text if the simmering racial commentary in Night of the Living Dead (1968) no longer felt prescient - but it would speak to the healing of a racist society's poisoned heart. Alas, the closing moments of Romero's classic have lost none of their impact, not only as a reflection of past horror but as a mirror onto the present day.

When Danny Boyle's lo-fi zombie pulse pounder 28 Days Later... (2002) made its way to theaters, the world was in a state of distress: the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center had been the deadliest in American History; the reactionary War on Terror had gone into full effect; xenophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments had become largely accepted in discourse; and all of this related chaos and rage was broadcast to the world on News stations that could agree on no opinion but one: things were not looking good.

The English horror film had no overt references to current events - in fact, it went into production before these events occurred; but its themes and aesthetics captured the prevailing mood that the end was extremely nigh - and if that held true in 2002, its apocalyptic overtones feel even more prescient today.

The Film

28 Days Later
 20th Century Studios

Though synonymous with the era following 9/11, 28 Days Later is not about any one event. Boyle has characterized the film as a reflection on social rage. "There's a very specific social intolerance of each other," he told CBS. "It seems to be a speed fixation. When it's not delivered at the speed desired, people just lose it." This hyperactive rage is a consequence of a consumer culture supported by a military/industrial complex, one that sets individuals against each other in the search for personal gratification. Boyle argues that the only antidote is personal connection and community: a refutation of the cultural lens that has us looking at other people as obstacles.

The rage that courses through the film is connected to violence perpetrated by the state. The virus is created by forcing chimpanzees to watch footage of horror: military violence, riots, and the human cost of implacable brutality. This is analogues to the experience of the average citizen flipping on the news (the film's digital aesthetics allude to this experience). The rage is informed by the passivity of the viewer - the witness looks on helpless as forces bigger than they wreak havoc, often on their behalf. In this sense, rage is both supported by the infrastructure (i.e., the infantilizing effects of consumer culture and instant gratification Boyle referred to) and a reaction against the infrastructure (i.e., rageful distress caused by the cruelty necessary to support it).

The film's social commentary comes into full view in its latter half, when the remaining survivors are abused by the soldiers they thought would be their salvation. Having followed a radio signal advertising safety and the answer to infection, the main characters discover the "answer" is military rule and sexual slavery for the sake of procreation. The idea that soldiers represent safety is in line with the view that civilization is a structure that protects mankind from their baser impulses - with force. As we see in the transformation of our protagonist, Jim (whose attack on the soldiers is captured with the head-spinning camerawork otherwise reserved for the infected), the rageful impulse has less to do with man's base nature than an oppressive state that positions itself in opposition to humanity. After their escape, the three survivors find true salvation in each other.

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The Original Release

28 Days Later
20th Century Studios

28 Days Later was already in production when the 9/11 attacks occurred, so the chilling parallels between fiction and (then) current events were unintentional - but the images of a debris-covered metropolis, missing person flyers, and military brutality struck a nerve. The film spoke particularly to Western anxieties: Jim wakes up to find his stable city destroyed for reasons he cannot understand. This spoke to a common experience among the first world's privileged class when the Twin Towers fell, particularly in America. This act of terror was related to long-lasting tensions and violence between the US military and the nations its foreign policy affected - but to most Americans, the attack came out of nowhere: there was no sense of continuity between American foreign policy and the tragic loss of life on American soil.

Though the film spoke specifically to this collective trauma, its position on it differed widely depending on who was watching. Sarah Trimble points out that the film falls into a trend of "patriarchal survival fantasies," in which lone men protect a make-shift family in a post-apocalyptic landscape (this overlooks the fact that Jim's partner, Selena, protects him for the majority of the runtime). Through this lens, the rage virus is metaphorical for the perceived threat posed by the declassed and "underdeveloped" countries to a first world nation. Alternately, the rage virus could be read as a metaphor for the increase in xenophobia, hatred, and intolerance in the attacks' wake; or as the general dehumanizing consequences of a heavily militarized and oppressive global society. Like many great social horror films, 28 Days Later is a politically ambiguous Rorschach test that captures an anxiety more than it comments on it.

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The Age of Rage

Cillian Murphy sprints from man on fire in 28 Days later
Fox Searchlight

Danny Boyle's depiction of a virus that swiftly deteriorates the infrastructure hits differently after the devastation wrought by COVID-19; but the same could be said for any film about a pandemic. What makes 28 Days Later unique is its prologue, which highlights the strained social fabric that makes room for the destruction to come: in the film; the virus is literally caused by prolonged exposure to social violence and military oppression. The 2020 pandemic revealed weaknesses in the political structures binding us together: the response to the threat was slow and characterized by politically motivated denial, the availability of protective resources was marked by inequality and racial/class discrimination, and (at least in America) police violence increased.

With the lapsing of many nations into extremist militarized governments, the increasing threat of climate change, the growth of the wealth gap, and the large loss of life stemming from COVID-19 and the ineffective governmental response, things are feeling apocalyptic, and 28 Days Later speaks to all of these issues. Where it feels more relevant than ever is in its depiction of a civilization destroyed by rage. In a time as polarized as our own, this theme carries great significance.

28-Days-Later-1
 20th Century Studios

If there's a problem with diagnosing modern discourse as unprecedentedly divided, it is in the implied comparison between an uncivilized status-quo and a formerly united status-quo. Anyone who lived through the intense political division when 28 Days Later was released knows this is not the case. If anything, the current division speaks to long-lasting social issues that have become so polarizing precisely because they were insufficiently dealt with in the past. The other problem with these semantics is that we equate the rage burning away on both sides of any given issue; while it is no doubt true that rageful polarization keeps one from seeing the other, the rage toward white supremacy is undeniably more justified, for example, than the rage toward "white replacement." With all this in mind, there is no denying that current affairs are marred by a furious polarity that places people at odds with one another. Our rage keeps us from seeing the humanity in one another, and 28 Days Later captures this in all its horror.

Where the film becomes especially fascinating (and confrontational) from this perspective is in its final act. Earlier in the film, Selena tells Jim that if she thought he was infected, she would kill him "in a heartbeat." This is put to the test when Jim has been pushed too far by the soldiers and goes on a killing spree. By the time he reaches Selena and brutally kills her captors, she has no way of knowing if he has been infected - yet she hesitates. In the film's most powerful moment, Jim tells her she waited longer than a heartbeat, and the two embrace. In this sequence, Jim has become indistinguishable from the (not really) undead hordes he and Selena have been battling - but where their rage is targetless and general, his is justified. The ending suggests that rage itself is not the problem; rage is a rational response to the world that surrounds us. The question is where and how it is directed.