DIRECTOR: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

It’s amazing how with so much terror around Hollywood consistently goes shopping for new horrors. And this time, re-shopping for them, for Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and Rowan Joffe pick up in 28 Weeks Later from where 28 Days Later ended — with a “rage virus” outbreak, again ravaging Britain.

What are left behind, like in the 2002 film, are crazed zombies who viciously attack normal human beings (only normal ones, in a remarkable act of reasoning through their rage), tear their flesh or gouge their eyes out, vomit blood on them and leave them infected, and so the cycle continues.

Director Donny Boyle (Trainspotting, The Beach) and writer Alex Garland of 28 Days Later are associated with the new film as Executive Producers, and Fresnadillo is an award-winning short film director. So, not surprisingly, 28 Weeks Later is a well-mounted venture, with astonishing shots of deserted and terror-hit London streets. Fresnadillo keeps one constantly on the edge, with almost nothing happening as expected.

It starts with a couple, Don and Sally, holed up with some people inside a house in the countryside, doors and windows boarded, to keep out the infection. One day, just as they are settling down to eat, a child comes knocking and brings with him the virus-carriers. Scared, Don (Carlyle) bolts, leaving his wife to certain death, or worse, at the hands of the attackers.

Twenty-eight weeks pass and it is assumed that the virus has been contained and all those infected are dead. The repatriation back to mainland Britain starts. As Don’s children return from a vacation abroad, they become among the youngest survivors of the tragedy.

But is the virus really contained? Obviously not, and Fresnadillo nicely captures the panic of a US force hardly anticipating such a crisis, declaring a “Code Red” and resorting to firebombing London (London!!!), irrespective of who may be torched alive.

The violence is relentless, with Fresnadillo making it clear that he isn't making films for the faint hearted. However, there are many nice moments, including a night sequence and another where the play of light on victims’ eyes makes it difficult to tell the infected apart from the normal. The idea to put Don and Sally’s two children at the centre of the story is also inspired.

But as he does suggest a sequel, in France, one piece of advice: London may have agreed to the depiction of an assault on its soil as an entirely American problem (everyone from the Chief Medical Officer to the sniper with a heart of gold tackling the virus is an American), Paris won’t be as malleable.