WE’RE LIVING IN A POP TRASH MOVIE
I saw 28 Days Later last night. As a Danny Boyle fan, I was pretty pumped for it, but I was still ill prepared for how much I loved it. I’m not a real horror buff or anything, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a trailer for a zombie movie and thought to myself, “Man, I have to see that!” But this hooked me from the word go, and it never shook me off.
In fact, Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland smartly started the film off with a shocking bang. This was a Friday night sneak preview crowd, and they were rowdy in line and amped up, but the opening sequence shut them up fast, and the film kept them enthralled all the way through. For my part, I was thoroughly creeped out, and I jumped like a scaredy cat in all the right places. I never saw where the film was going, and in a final 1/3 that reminded me somewhat of Apocalypse Now’s scenes where Marlowe gets to the farthest outposts, Boyle was able to transfer the horror from the infected to the non-infected and bring home his metaphor of the violent nature of modern man in extremely effective ways.
The whole film was shot on DV, giving it a low-fi but immediate look/feel. And even on the shoestring it must have been produced on, Boyle still managed to find ways to keep his exciting visual style. I think the whole film was shot at a breakneck pace, and it made me start to ponder such a thing in prose. What is the novel equivalent of guerilla filmmaking? Is it a caffeinated full-tilt-boogie of typing? Bang out the manuscript as fast as you can?
Of course, I ask this as I tread my way through Duklyon swamp, first thing in the morning down at Starbucks. The coffee is eating away at my stomach—a massive mocha this morning meeting the coffee from last night (the final swig at the theatre giving me a mouth full of grounds, and me having to spit it out in the middle of a quiet moment in the movie), but I am determined to get through this. It’s a little easier this time just because it’s not as repetitive. Volume 2 has a driving narrative for at least the first 2/3 or so, rather than a play on the repetitious monster-of-the-week superhero TV shows.
Current Soundtrack: Duran Duran, Pop Trash
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