See You, Later

This afternoon, I went to see 28 Weeks Later. I was almost coming to the movie with a clean slate. I saw the original 28 Days Later when it was in theaters, and today I find I can barely remember anything about that first film at all. I guess I didn't think it was that great, or particularly bad. It was before I started blogging, so I can't even look back to read what I thought at the time. I suppose that means, if anything, I had somewhat low expectations of the sequel.

Whatever indifference I might have over the original, I can't say that at all of the sequel. 28 Weeks Later was a really good movie. And I really chalk it up to one key element -- it was relentlessly dark in tone, harsh and cruel. In every single situation that came up in the film, it seemed like the worst possible thing that could happen did.

Deaths weren't just ugly, they were horrifying. People weren't just forced to the point of making difficult decisions, they were really forced to suffer the emotional consequences of what they'd done. Noble sacrifices weren't quick and easy, they were painful and brutal. In some ways, it reminded me a bit of the first season (and original mini-series) of the current Battlestar Galactica, which I thought was so incredible. It was a stark and realistic look at how people might behave in a fantastical situation.

Sprinkled throughout the movie were some great "sequences," very well-conceived set-ups for action and/or suspense. And while a lot of the scares did rely on the cheap parlor tricks of jump cuts and sudden noises, there were also some moments of genuine, sustained dread.

But I do have to "take a deduction" for some of the cinematography. Most of the action sequences were shot hand-held, a common camera technique for injecting more energy into a scene, and/or a sense of documentary filmmaking. To a point, that approach was effective here. But often, specifically when the "infected" were on screen, the hand-held went too far, into a frenetic, blurry shaking. While I do believe in the "less is more" approach when it comes to seeing the monsters of horror movies on camera, this strangely felt to me like the opposite, or a "more is more" take on the hand-held instability. It felt a bit over the top to me at times.

Nevertheless, a small mark against what was otherwise a very effective movie. I give it an A-. I don't quite think as highly of it as I did the remake of Dawn of the Dead, but it is nevertheless the most solid horror movie to come along in some time.