28 Weeks Later (2007)

Flaunting rules during COVID - maybe that I can kind of understand, but in the face of apocalyptic evidence post-the-virus in this sequel to 28 Days Later, it is hard to believe anyone, even kids, would "sneak out", but they do, and that lapse in credibility becomes the film's defining weakness as, repeatedly, family reunions defy apocalyptic chaos, characters display magical virus expertise, and John Woo-style theatrics push the story towards spectacle and away from the unsettling plausibility that made the original so engrossing.

★★★☆☆

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28 Days Later (2002)

Even though the zombie action here is tried-and-true - an apparently lone survivor stumbles across other survivors, they argue about what to do, and eventually agree to seek out the source of radio-broadcast messages about a safe haven -  director Danny Boyle keeps things stylistically and visually fresh with rapid, rabid zombies - not the slow-moving hordes - and a gritty British rock aesthetic, right from the start, for example, pairing anti-establishment thrash with frenzied scenes of a virus breach at a research lab before cutting to a lengthy sequence of unnerving silence as Cillian Murphy wakes in a hospital in a completely deserted London.

★★★★☆

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The Night of the Living Dead (1968)

George A Romero's low-budget black-and-white indie talkfest takes place almost entirely in the confines of a farmhouse where seven people are sheltering from an army of slow-moving, flesh-eating "ghouls" - there are more verbal descriptions of the horror these living dead inflict than horrors seen on screen, yet it is effective and captivating - a well-acted, often-copied launch pad for so much modern horror.

★★★★☆

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#Alive (2020)

Yoo Ah-in, who was so good in Burning as Lee Jong-su, essentially repeats the performance here playing Oh Joon-woo, the same gormless kid gaping dumbly at a set of circumstances beyond his comprehension - here, a cannibal zombie onslaught in an apartment complex - and it really is this and the performance of his costar, Park Shin-hye as a fellow survivor in an apartment across the way, that help overcome several cheats in the script - zombie hordes who suddenly aren't a threat at a door, for example - and elevates this slight string of zombie survival set-pieces into something human and affecting.

★★★☆☆

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