Review: 28 Weeks Later & Hatchet

On Friday night, we headed over to Benoit’s place (which, coincidentally, is defined as the greatest place in the world) to watch some horror films to continue our thirst for blood and zombies.

First up was 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later which showed a desolate London, England which has fallen victim to the Rage virus – a virus which spread amongst the population and created maniacal zombies which stopped at nothing but carnage in the form of eating innocent humans. The film’s hero awakes in a hospital and tours around London to find that there is NO ONE LEFT. This haunting film follows his quest to find survivors and to escape the zombies only to find out that sometimes you don’t know what’s worse – the zombies, or the surviving humans.

28 Weeks Later takes place 28 weeks after the original outbreak of the virus when all is seemingly well in London and the city has started to take refugees back into the city under strict US Army supervision (because the English army has been wiped out?). There are quarantine zones as they go through and clean up the mess left behind but two kids go into the quarantine zone to find their old house and get some things (clothes, etc). I don’t think I’m ruining anything concerning the film when I tell you that once again, the virus has an outbreak and zombie terror reigns but it’s coupled with the insane actions of the US Army to control the situation.

In the end, Benoit was saying he enjoyed this film more than the first. I have to say that I at least think it’s on par with the old one, but upon future viewings it may become better. It’s an excellent sequel – an original storyline about what happens after the outbreak. The zombies are my favourite variety of any series – hyper-fast, crazy in their feedings of the living, spitting blood…BEAUTIFUL!

My only gripe of the film was the fact that they used this one driving tune (In The House – In A Heartbeat by John Murphy) that appeared in 28 Days Later EVERY TIME WHEN THE ZOMBIES WERE RUNNING AROUND! While I really enjoyed this driving guitar song which raises your anticipation of chaos, I would like to think that they could have found some different music to place inside the film instead of having it happen 20 times in the movie. Come on people! There was also this one ludicrous scene where a zombie survived the napalming of the city, but that’s a minor irritant.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and I would have to say (this doesn’t come from me often), it may win the BEST MOVIE EVER award from yours truly.

Next up, we watched Hatchet. I had seen an advertisement in Vice Magazine for this film and also checked out its Wikipedia entry where it said it was an official selection for many film festivals and had sold out around the world. I guess it is a great film so I downloaded it for our viewing pleasure.

Don’t bother. This film was awful. AWFUL. It’s one of those films which are so bad, it’s good! I can see myself watching this again just to have a laugh. While I thought the death sequences were over the top, that was the only redeeming quality to this film.

Thanks to Benoit and Cinthia for hosting the event at their luxurious pad.

Bonus Review:

It wasn’t until someone mentioned Batman this morning that I remembered the greatest part of horror film night – the moment where we put in the original Batman movie with Adam West and watched the scene where he enters the ocean and exits it with a shark attached to his leg! His only way out is to club it with his bat-gloves and ask Robin to bring down the shark reppelant. Honestly, it doesn’t get any better than that people.

How can such a dark, brooding character be the victim to such an insanely funny TV show?

iplaying: Nothing Else Matters – Metallica (S&M)