THE PLOT
Sequence 1: In Cambridge, London, animal rights activists sneak into the Cambridge Primate Research Centre to release apes who are being held captive for testing. A scientist warns the activists that the apes have a deadly virus called the rage, but one of the activists proceeds to break the cage of one of the apes. She is then attacked and infected by the ape, which leads her to infect other humans.
Sequence 2: 28 days later, a man named Jim wakes up naked in a hospital that appears to have been trashed. While wandering around the now deserted London, and hollering out for anyone who may be around, Jim enters a church where he finds a pile of dead bodies. He then ends up being chased by several “zombies” who have been infected with the rage, but he is fortunately saved by two survivors,who burn the bodies of the infected, and cause a huge explosion.
Sequence 3: The two survivors, who we find out are named Mark and Selena, take Jim to a “safe house” (a store that they have barricaded to protect themselves from the infected). Jim tells them that he is a bicycle courier and only remembers running a delivery before crashing into a car. Mark and Selena explains all that he has missed about the emergence and the damages of the “rage” virus.
Sequence 4: During the daylight, Mark and Selena accompany Jim as he visits his parents’ house. Jim finds his parents dead, and realizes that they killed themselves through drug abuse while he was in a coma. Selena tells Jim that he should be grateful that his parents were not infected by the rage. Selena also decides that they should all stay in Jim’s parents’ house for the night. Later that evening, Jim decides to watch one of his mother’s home videos, but the light attracts an infected being who crashes into the house and attacks him. Mark saves Jim, but during his fight with the infected, Mark gets bit on the arm, leading Selena to kill Mark.
Sequence 5: As Selena and Jim seek another place to hide, Selena explains to Jim that they only have between 10 and 20 seconds to kill someone when he or she gets infected. Selena and Jim find themselves in another encounter with the infected, but they are saved by another survivor named Frank. Frank has been staying in a room with flashing Christmas lights along with his daughter Hannah in order to attract other survivors who can help them.
Sequence 6: Frank, Jim, Selena, and Hannah listen to a radio broadcast calling for all survivors to report to a certain location in Manchester where they will be found by a group of military soldiers. On their way to Manchester, they cross through a dark tunnel where they get a flat tire. They are almost attacked by the infected, but Hannah manages to change the tire in time. They then stop by a store where they collect all sorts of foods and they also stop for an oil change. During these adventures of survival, Selena’s relationship with Jim begins to develop.
Sequence 7: Arriving at a blockade in Manchester, they initially find no military soldiers. In anger over possibly reaching an dead end, Frank kicks a barricade, causing the blood of an infected to fall into his eyes. As Frank transforms into a “zombie”, military soldiers kill him before he could attack Selena, Jim, or Hannah. The soldiers then take them to their military home base where they meet Major Henry West. Jim attempts to comfort Selena who is overwhelmed with handling Hannah’s loss and feels like there is no hope in being happy again.
Sequence 8: Major West tells Jim that secondary to the soldier’s pursuit for a cure for the infection is the pursuit to rebuild and recreate civilization. West also introduces Jim to one of his previous soldiers, Malier, who has been infected for two days, but kept prisoner so that they can learn more about the infection. After the feast with the soldiers (which ends early when the soldiers leave to fight off the infected), West tells Jim that they need women in order to ensure the future of the soldiers. Jim attempts to escape with Selena and Hannah, but Jim gets hit and then put in prison along with a former soldier who believes that the “rest of the world” is living a normal life, and that the soldiers are choosing to remain in the “diseased” island.
Sequence 9: Two military soldiers take Jim and the former soldier out into the forest to kill them. Jim escapes, and discovers that there is a plane flying in the sky, possibly looking for survivors. Meanwhile, Selena and Hannah are being forced to change clothes in order to sleep with the soldiers. Sounding the alarm of the home base, the soldiers rush to try to find Jim who releases Malier. The infected proceeds to infect other soldiers, allowing Selena and Hannah the chance to escape.
Sequence 10: Jim runs all over the home base looking for Selena and Hannah. Selena is currently being manhandled by a soldier while Hannah is hiding from the infected. When Jim finds Selena, he attacks the soldier as if he was one of the infected himself. Hannah then finds Jim and Selena, and they attempt to escape together in a car but West stops them and shoots Jim. Hannah, who is driving the car, reverses West back into the home base where Malier grabs him. Afterwards, Hannah drives off along with Jim and Selena.
Sequence 11: 28 days later, Jim wakes up in time to help Hannah and Selena get the attention of a plane that is flying above them. When they are noticed, the three smile at each other, in hope for the future.
FRAME SELECTION AND ANALYSIS
Frame Time: 1:13:39
Word Count: 401
At the time of this frame, Jim had just been introduced to an infected soldier named Malier who is being kept captive in the backyard of the soldiers’ brick wall “home base.” After West and Jim have gone, Malier is no longer in a “zombie frenzy” over human presence, and he backs up into the right corner of this full shot⎼⎼his face looking towards the ground and his body hunched over in the left direction. Above his head is a string line running across from one reddish stained brick wall to another. Hanging on the string line are dirty, torn white sheets with reddish stains (similar to the brick walls) that resemble shades of blood. The sheets seem to complement Malier because although the sheets are hanging behind him, it looks like Malier is actually positioned among them. The ends of the sheets are also slanted to the right, allowing the torn top of the sheets to be point in almost the same angle as Malier’s body. Because Malier looks like he is placed amid the sheets and not in front of the sheets, the shot demonstrates that despite, his monstrous qualities, Malier is easily disregarded to the point that he could even be mistaken as one of the sheets. I think this is especially true because Malier’s specific facial features are unrecognizable to the extent in which we could see Malier as just a silhouette of a dark black man. It is also hard to realize that Malier is actually wearing camouflage clothing (and not all black clothing) because he is completely filthy and covered with the same dirt that we clearly see on the torn white sheets around him. We could also imagine that Malier’s locality as the “third dirty sheet in line” also sends the audience a mixed message about his lack of importance even though he is used by Jim later in the movie to infect all the other soldiers so that he, Selena, and Hannah could escape. What really interested me about this particular frame was how human Malier seems even when he may not be considered as human anymore by the other characters. Yes, he is a raging “zombie” with bloody red eyes, but when the non-infected humans leave his presence, he resorts back to a state that can be read as not only lifelessness but also hopelessness and dejection, which are signature human emotions.