28 Days Later...
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: June 27, 2003 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
73
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
SlateDavid Edelstein
This is finally the zombie flick as cautionary political tale, and as humanist parable. It's not the flesh-gouging zombie we have to worry about, the filmmakers suggest, but the soul-gouging zombie within. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
A first-rate zombie movie. The best tribute I can offer is that it makes you want to go out directly afterward and down some expensive single-malt scotch. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
At once an old-fashioned freakout and an environmental cautionary tale (mess with Mother Nature and she'll mess with you right back), the film combines two genre standbys -- lethal contagion and the undead -- and gives them a wicked, contemporary spin. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Rarely has so scary a thriller been so well made, and never has digital video -- by the English cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle -- been put to grittier use.
88
New York PostMegan Lehmann
In place of elaborate sets, clever filmmaking gives the impression of a central London emptied of people and cars, to eerie effect - and this opening reel is nothing short of magnificent. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
But this smart, genuinely creepy movie also feels real, which is why its horrors hit so hard. Fans of the scary stuff, run, don't walk. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
It's “The Wizard of Oz” with a viral infection. Read full review
88
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
It's a zombie flick that moves -- no stumbling, staggering living dead here -- in an atmosphere that feels like a Gothic docudrama, and it's freaky beyond all reason. Read full review
88
PremiereGlenn Kenny
The genuine article, a hard-core horror picture from start to finish... Prepare to get seriously stresed. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland plumb the violence of the mind with slashing wit and shocking gravity. Happy nightmares. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, a veteran of low-tech Dogme films, work wonders with a digital camera, pausing to take in the beauty of the countryside or an eerily empty London…It's virtuosic without ever quite being showy. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
A swankily austere piece of jeepers-creepers sci-fi. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Fresh and edgy; the images of a wasted London and the details of a paramilitary organization in the countryside are both creepy and persuasive. Read full review
80
Dallas ObserverLuke Y. Thompson
The deep thematic concerns are never fully developed, but the characters are, and the story compels. Also, the movie's pretty scary. Read full review
80
The New York TimesDana Stevens
Mr. Boyle has hardly lost his sly, provocative perversity or his ear for the rhythms of unchecked violence, but he does seem to be maturing. It's as if, in contemplating the annihilation of the human race, he has discovered his inner humanist. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
On one hand a seat-o'-pants digital-video quickie designed for blunt trauma, and on the other a veritable index of classic genre-stuff, Boyle's film creates an acute sense of movie-viewing danger. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Corliss
Boyle's ingenuity with the camera gives this fraught journey plenty of menace and pizazz. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyJohn Powers
The movie is mercifully uncontaminated by the smarty-pants self-reflexiveness that has sucked the lifeblood from nearly all post-"Scream" horror pictures. Clever enough not to be too clever, Boyle and Garland play their story straight -- they just want to give you the creeps -- and, by so doing, bring the undead back to cinematic life. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
There’s gore, all right, although the real terror lies in the tease, and the often dark, herky-jerky DV format ratchets up the tension to an almost unbearable degree. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Around about the third act, the picture does what no self-respecting virus ever would -- relents, turns confused, and lets our immune system fight back with thoughts of its own, with distracting cavils about the logic of the plot and the slightness of the themes. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The look of the film, shot on digital video, is haunting and gritty. The cleaner, prettier look of 35mm would have detracted from the immediacy and sense of foreboding created in this artful blend of sci-fi and pseudo-realism. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
A damn-near great end-of-the-world zombie movie, terrifying on the basic heebie-jeebie level, respectful toward its B-movie forebears, and all the more unnerving for coming out in this fretful era of SARS and germ warfare. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
It's not a pretty picture, but it won't be soon forgotten by thriller fans with nerves and stomachs steely enough to take its violence in stride. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Boyle gives us some truly harrowing sequences and a succession of images that stick in the mind like a bad dream. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
By the finish, the movie is getting by on little but adrenaline and audience goodwill. Still, that goodwill runs fairly deep, because, taken all in all, 28 Days Later is a superior motion picture. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Solid performances, an intelligent script, and sure-handed direction. The result is a movie that kept me involved from start to finish. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A tough, smart, ingenious movie that leads its characters into situations where everything depends on their (and our) understanding of human nature. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
It's undoubtedly a canny and clever twist on the standard zombie-attack yarn, but anybody who's making grand claims for 28 Days Later simply hasn't seen enough horror movies. Read full review
70
Film ThreatRick Kisonak
Manages to be impressively unsettling given the flaws in its foundation. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Heir to a long tradition of apocalyptic scare stories, the film wears its influences proudly. Read full review
70
VarietyDerek Elley
Shows a rather arrogant disdain for its audience in between occasional flashes of flair. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
I think Garland and Boyle just want to make our flesh creep by showing someone else's flesh decaying. If that's their aim, they achieved it. Read full review
63
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
[Boyle] shrugs off any intellectual pretense to rollick in a dead-on scare fest. On that level, 28 Days Later is indeed a frightfully good time. Read full review
60
Film ThreatRich Cline
Director Danny Boyle ("Trainspotting") has a terrific eye, so the film as a whole is very well directed, with clever camera work that builds the tension and actually jolts us out of our seats a few times. Read full review
60
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Like his makeshift societies, Garland's tantalizing set-ups tend to unravel in unsatisfying ways. Read full review
50
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Creepy and truly suspenseful in some places, unintentionally comic or plain awful in others. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Boyle's new movie is mostly a zombie fiasco, closer to the vacuities of "The Beach" than the scintillating social satire of "Trainspotting." Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
There are two drawbacks here. One is a shortage of superior zombies, although where one goes to rent extra zombies I have no idea...Second, we have a serious shortage of fright. [30 June 2003, p. 102]
30
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Unrelentingly grim, unremittingly gross and unforgivably unattractive, 28 Days Later is an orgy of troubling images and bestial sound effects. Read full review
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