In the midst of all the nine-figure budgets and all-star casts comes this independent British feature from director Danny Boyle. Boyle is actually a quite prominent director having worked with such stars as Leonardo DiCaprio on his film The Beach but Boyle is best known for his earlier work on dark indy films like Trainspotting and Shallow Grave. Boyle returns to form here with a film that’s certainly as dark as anything I’ve seen this year. The truly odd thing about this film is how much mainstream attention it has gotten. Released the same week as Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, this film ran as many ads and promotions as the big budget competition and while its release was certainly not as wide or profitable as Charlie’s Angels, it did manage to make its entire budget back in its first day of release. So why did this movie appeal to such a large audience when most other independent films go completely unnoticed? My guess is that there is a market out there for intelligent sci-fi and horror which this film certainly is. The movie opens with a group of tree-hugging animal rights nuts trying to release some laboratory chimps that are being experimented on by “evil” scientists. What the activists don’t know is that the chimps they are trying to release have been infected with a genetically engineered “rage virus”. Well, one of the chimps attacks the activists and in truly brilliant storytelling form, we then flash forward to 28 days later as a coma patient awakens to find all of England empty, apparently due to the outbreak. These early scenes are quite breathtaking as the main character, Jim (played by Cillian Murphy) wanders through the streets yelling “hello!” at the top of his lungs to no avail. Crowded streets, roads, even Piccadilly Circus are all completely empty in a scene that is reminiscent of the amazing Times Square sequence from Vanilla Sky. There are some uncompromisingly dark scenes early in the film that most directors would have simply avoided such as when Jim visits his house and finds his parents’ bodies along with a goodbye note explaining that they had poisoned themselves to avoid a violent death at the hands of the rage virus. Jim quickly discovers much to his dismay that he is not alone in London as he attacked by some infected humans. Luckily he is rescued by two survivors named Selena and Mark (Naomie Harris and Noah Huntley) who are living off of snack foods and sodas in the London underground. The two survivors take Jim in and explain to him the state of the nation and possibly the world as the know it. The virus has spread all across England and television and radio broadcasts have ceased transmission. The last that was heard was that the virus had begun to spread to New York and France but the two survivalists haven’t heard much since they’ve been hiding from the infected for most of their days. The infected humans are simply horrifying, something you might see in a zombie movie. The virus, it is explained, can only be transmitted through blood or bodily fluids but when someone becomes infected it takes only 20 seconds to transform that person into a raging, blood-thirsty killer. This forces the survivors to take brutal action if they believe that one of their own might have become infected. These instances are hard to watch but I believe they actually improve the story. I have grown so tired of infection stories where someone becomes infected and no one else knows about it until it’s too late. In this case, infection is a fast and blatantly obvious problem that must be solved quickly and savagely. The story evolves as Jim and Selena discover a father and daughter (Brendan Gleeson and Megan Burns) who have picked up a radio signal from Manchester claiming that there is a cure for the infection and help for anyone who can make it to Manchester. For the rest of the film the characters are journeying towards Manchester with all their hopes of survival depending on it. I won’t reveal just what they find when they get there but it should suffice to say that Danny Boyle is far too dark and twisted to let it all end so easily. The acting is all superb as would be expected in a moderately budgeted independent film such as this. Although most of you haven’t heard of him Brendan Gleeson is quite famous in England and has a long and impressive résumé of character roles and he turns in a fine performance here as a man who unlike the two main characters has something to live for, his daughter. The difference in his attitude from the other two main characters is sharp and it takes a keen sense of human nature to be able to write characters that way. The other impressive thing about the screenplay is that unlike most traditional films, the characters behave in a way that is absolutely understandable if not predictable. Rather than create a plotline and have the characters follow it, the screenwriter sets up the characters then has them act and react according to their pre-established personalities. If it all sounds a little too brainy for you, don’t be fooled; there’s plenty of action and suspense to go around. While the movie is character centered, there is violence and action galore particularly in the film’s final resolution. In the end though, 28 Days Later excels as a film not because it gives us what we are used to but because it ignores the conventions of genre and does what seems to come natural. The film works as an individual not as a member of a genre and there’s really something impressive about that. It has its own voice, its own style which Danny Boyle keeps quite consistent throughout the movie. The movie has an identity all its own and it never compromises. For once, a movie with aspects of horror and sci-fi that actually tries to say something important. I recommend 28 Days Later as a thrilling, suspenseful haunted house of a movie crossed with a thoughtful, provocative statement on human nature.