Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and the stars of “28 Weeks Later” don’t want you to call it a zombie film.
“Zombie is a word, to be honest, that is a little bit far away from this movie,” Fresnadillo told RedEye recently at London’s SoHo hotel. “Zombies are related to death and dead people. In this movie we have people suffering with infections.”
Right.
It’s true, the “infected,” as Fresnadillo calls his zombie-like characters, have never died. Yet they bang into walls, growl, howl and sink their teeth into victims just like zombies do.
He prefers you call his sequel to the critically acclaimed “28 Days Later” an “apocalyptic thriller.” In short, he said, “28 Weeks Later” is all about rage.
“I think we are living in a world absolutely full of rage and I think that you can see it,” Fresnadillo said.
“28 Weeks Later,” which hits theaters on Friday, picks up where its 2003 predecessor left off.
It’s been six months since the devastation of the first film, and the U.S. Army has determined that the infection has been wiped out. The survivors are allowed to go back home to London and elsewhere and get on with their lives.
Robert Carlyle, best known for his work in “The Full Monty” and “Trainspotting,” plays Don, a father who is trying to save his two children from becoming infected.
Like Fresnadillo, Carlyle thinks “28 Weeks” is much deeper than your average zombie film.
“My understanding of zombies are of these people who are rising from the dead and stuff like that and walking very, very slowly,” Carlyle said. “These [bleep] don’t do that. I wouldn’t argue the point, it’s what you want it to be. But I think this film has a little more intelligence than your average scary movie.”
Yet it was the film’s realism that drew “Lost” veteran Harold Perrineau to the project.
“That’s the brilliance about this whole thing,” he said. “We’re familiar with all of these different things. We’re familiar with viruses that happen really quickly. We’re familiar with war right now. We’re familiar with anger and hate and all of those things.”
Audiences won’t have to be familiar with “28 Days Later” to get “28 Weeks Later,” cast members said.
“I think it can stand totally by itself,” Perrineau said. “I think seeing the first one certainly gives you more of an appreciation for it. There are familiarities that you go like, ‘Oh, that was really great in the first one.’ I think they’re both really, really good.”
