Night 22 of "The 31 Days of Halloween Film Fest"

I've joined in the fun over at Domestic Witch's October Blog Party. You can find a list of participating blogs that are having fun celebrating the season of Halloween. When you're done here take a broom ride over to her site and you'll see the list of blogs on the right side bar.

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Here at The Lounge we will have a "31 Nights of Halloween Film Fest". Check back each day to see which movie is featured and some days you may get more than one. They will be a random selection of my favorites. You can see all past selections on the sidebar.

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Make sure to leave a comment for each movie as one lucky person will win their choice of pendant from Laughing Vixen Lounge at the end of the film fest. Please see rules at end of post.

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Night 22...."28 Days Later"

Directed by Danny Boyle (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary) and released on June 27, 2003 by Twentieth Century Fox. A monkey is set free from a lab. Bad move. The monkey sets off a chain reaction of a very nasty virus. 28 days later Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up in a hospital from a head injury having no idea what has happened around him. We follow Jim and a few other survivors on their journey through England and it's population of Zombie-like infected. Is there hope for the survivors? Is the whole world gone? Are there others left besides them?

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When I decided to go see this movie in the theater I figured it would just be another post apocalyptic zombie movie. I was wrong. This movie was brilliant and truly frightening. Coming out in the post 911 world with everyone fearing everything this movie worked great. I mean, with chemical warfare and such this movie didn't seem all that far fetched. So instead of another tired horror film I found myself sitting in the dark glued to the screen and leaving a bit freaked out. If you haven't seen this you should give it a try. Be warned it is a wee bit on the disgusting side.

The scene with Jim walking around London with no other people and no sound is a very eerie and impressive sight.

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Some trivia on the movie...

1. The decision to film on DV (using Canon XL1 cameras) was both an aesthetic and a logistic choice. On the aesthetic side of things, Danny Boyle felt that the harshness of the DV imagery suited the post-apocalyptic urban landscape and the grittiness of the film in general. In the production notes of the movie, Boyle points out that "the general idea was to try and shoot as though we were survivors too," and as such, a pristine 35mm widescreen image would have been antithetical to this notion. In terms of logistics, producer Andrew Macdonald claims that it would have been impossible to shoot the film on anything other than DV, especially some of the exterior scenes in London. As MacDonald points out in the production notes, "The police and the local authorities were quite happy to assist us because we could set up scenes so quickly. We could literally be ready to shoot with a six-camera set-up within minutes - something we would not realistically have been able to do if shooting under the restrictions of 35mm which takes a good deal more time to set up a single shot."

2. Scriptwriter Alex Garland acknowledges several sources as inspiration for his screenplay, notably John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids (1962), George A. Romero's "Dead" trilogy (Night, Dawn and Day) and The Omega Man (1971). Direct homages include Jim waking up in the hospital from The Day of the Triffids (1962), the chained infected being studied from Day of the Dead (1985), and the scene in the grocery store (people in the mall from Dawn of the Dead (1978)), the stop for supplies that saw a run-in with infected children (also Dawn of the Dead (1978)), and the military holing up against the plague with outsiders partially to deliberately include females (also Day of the Dead).

3. The symbol used for this film is the international symbol for blood-borne biohazard.

4. The primary idea behind Rage was that every generation gets the zombies it deserves, and Alex Garland and Danny Boyle felt that the notion of the living dead wanting to eat peoples' brains was outdated. One of the original impetuses behind zombie movies was a fear of nuclear power and the possible ramifications it might have on humanity. As such, Garland and Boyle looked at what this generation is afraid of, and concluded that one of the biggest fears in modern society is a fear of diseases, a fear of a viral apocalypse, such as Ebola or Marburg. Indeed, Garland and Boyle were specifically inspired by such incidents as the recent anthrax and bioterrorism scares in London as well as the recent spread of mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth disease in the UK. As such, they decided to base their zombies on this fear of viruses.

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Rules for pendant giveaway...
(1) comment about a movie per movie.
(1) extra entry by following this Blog and (1) extra for following on Twitter (You can only take the blog and twitter entries once for the whole contest).
(1) extra entry for Tweeting about this. Please use this message -Check out the "31 Nights of Halloween Film Fest" to win your choice of pendant from @LaughingVixen http://bit.ly/sNef6 -- 3 Tweets a day max and no more than 1 an hour.
(1) extra entry for guessing the next film. I will tweet hints on Twitter about the next days movie and you can post your guess as a comment. Doesn't have to be right just your best guess.
Make sure to post each entry as an individual comment on any of the movies comment pages. You can comment on past movies. Make sure you can be contacted from your post.