Along with the remake of Dawn Of The Dead, this movie kicked of my love affair, some would say obsession, with Zombie films. Although strictly speaking this is not a Zombie film as such, it's about The Infected, but to all intents and purposes they're near enough to being Zombies.
The film starts off with some animal rights activists breaking into a lab. During a tussle with some of the staff a monkey is released. Said simian is infected with Rage, a virus that makes whoever catches it ultra violent. The film then cuts to a hospital, coincidentally the one i was born in. We see Jim wake from a coma,having missed the outbreak of the Rage virus. He stumbles through the hospital, and then the streets of London looking for someone, anyone. Eventually, after surviving an attack by the Infected, Jim hooks up with 2 other survivors, one of whom doesn't even last the night before he is bitten and is hacked into small pieces by Selina, the other survivor.
Jim and Selina then meet up with Frank and Hannah, a father and daughter holed up in a tower block. Our group then decide to make for an encampment 'oop north' to be with soldiers who they believe will protect them. Not all is as it seems though and Major Henry West has some rather devious plans for our plucky survivors.
This film is almost unremittingly bleak. Interesting questions are asked here about violence. The Infected are violent but our heroes can either become violent when faced with a threat and survive or they can try another way and probably have their entrails munched on. It also shows how violence is corrupting and dehumanising with the effects of the post apocalyptic Britain on the soldiers. Really, in order to survive the Infected, one must become violent like them.
Although the young girl who plays Hannah is amazingly bad, the rest of the actors here are fantastic and cast perfectly. In as much as Africa was a character in The African Queen, i firmly believe that in the opening scenes London is also a player. Quite how the makers of this film managed to capture the streets utterly deserted and devastated truly is a marvel to behold and it qualifies as one of the creepiest scenes you will see. Some zombie films are played for laughs, some are played for scares and some are played for thrills. This one stands alone as being played for psychological thrills and chills.
This shouldn't put you off as this easily one of the best, if not THE best British films of the last 10 years or so.
While I wouldn't say it's the best film of the last ten years, I watched this movie and liked it as a film, not a zombie film.
ReplyDeleteI can't really see it as a zombie film, in fact. The virus is obviously a metaphor for the human condition, and survival for religious meaning.
One thing Cookie didn't mention is the numerous religious references: the first infected we meet is a priest in a church, the soldiers broadcast that they are "salvation" for the noninfected, Frank and Hannah are found by their Christmas lights on the tower block, Manchester is a burning Sheol when we see it, a help signal, before finished, spells "HELL." Not to mention the soundtrack music of "Ave Maria" and Faure's "Requiem".
As well, our first shot is of television monitors of human violence, forcefed to a chimpanzee strapped to a bed, with electrodes in his brain. I.e., the rage is part of our humanity. Our first site of Jim the protagonist show him similarly attached to a bed by tubes and wires, with a shaved and stitched section of scalp corresponding to the chimp's. His unshaven face has him resembling the ape, and when he leaves the hospital to be surrounded by violence, we have to ask == will he become similarly infected by rage? Jim's problem is that addressed by any religion, but what is the answer of this director? I won't give it away, but the path travelled is kept interesting and fresh by the camera shots, use of a window motif, with reflections of faces or city shots underlining a mood, and avoidance of trite horror cliches.
I also want to state that this plot is almost identical to the 1960s "Day of the Triffids," one of my favorites; and I still found it full of interest.