28 Days Later (2002)

Film Trace

The third film in our Self-Aware Horror cycle is 2002's zombie renaissance 28 Days Later

28 Days Later reanimated the zombie subgenre of horror, which had been left for dead and maligned where it always had been. Yes, technically speaking, the infected in the film are not zombies. But they might as well be. Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake came a couple of years later in 2004 and helped pushed the zombie genre fully into the mainstream where it stayed for the next 18 years. The highly popular tv series, The Walking Dead, is finally ending this year after twelve years on the air and two spin-off series with more to come. Zombies don't die.

While director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland have attempted to play down the zombie connection, 28 Days Later plays like an intricate and explosive hommage to George Romero's original Dead trilogy. Shot entirely on early digital video recorders, the film maintains a late 90s early 2000s look that is post analog but Pre HD. Even less appealing than the film's digital graininess is its cynical depiction of humanity as the last vestiges of the civilized world fall away. It is a nightmare that feels all too true and relevant to today's world.

Special Guest: Good friend of the show, Riley, who is our resident Wes Craven scholar.

For our chaser film, we have chosen 1997's Scream 2, the slasher thrill ride that came out less than a year after the original. Craven and Williamson are back here with the mainline cast and a tight story that somehow doesn't tarnish the first film. Often cited as one of the best horror sequels, Scream 2 is now 25 years old, so perhaps it is time to question its lauded status?