Is 28 Days Later a Zombie Movie?

Horror fans are incredibly passionate and regularly engage in all manner of debate about the most innocuous and mundane of topics, such as what the best sequel in a series might be, with one question plaguing audiences for more than 20 years: Is 28 Days Later a zombie movie? You’ll find heated reactions from viewers on both sides of the aisle, each believing with certainty that they are correct. While cinema, like all artforms, can be completely subjective, we feel confident in saying that the 2002 film directed by Danny Boyle from a script by Alex Garland and starring Cillian Murphy is, in fact, a zombie movie.

Before getting into why 28 Days Later is a zombie movie, let’s dive deeper into the popular subgenre of terror. Based on title and concept alone, 1932’s White Zombie is often considered to be the first zombie movie. The movie features a man who uses voodoo rituals and potions to turn people into “zombies,” a term used loosely to describe an individual whose mind has been overtaken and mental capacities stripped away. Throughout the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, a number of films used similar concepts to explore a number of ways in which individuals could have their identities and willpower completely overtaken, either through supernatural or scientific methods.

In 1968, George A. Romero delivered audiences Night of the Living Dead, which featured mindless ghouls who could come back from the dead, eat the flesh of the living, and be killed through the destruction of the brain. The movie was a tremendous financial success in the horror realm, and despite never even using the word “zombie,” it set the standard for the modern take on the monster. The movie inspired countless imitators, as well as its own sequels, while also setting the foundation of the criteria for zombies. Over time, the idea of a zombie bite resulting in the transmission of zombie-like qualities was also incorporated into the archetype, as well as zombies having limited mental capacity.

As time went on and the horror genre expanded, another subgenre that established itself was the infection movie, in which any manner of disease was spreading throughout a community that caused deadly side effects. While some felt like they could be inspired by real-life situations, such as 1995’s Outbreak or 2011’s Contagion, there were more extreme explorations of such infections, such as Romero’s own The Crazies in 1973. 

The nature of infection movies means there’s a lot more room for interpretation, whereas the zombie subgenre has earned more rigid rules about what can fall within that realm. In 28 Days Later, in hopes of finding the cure for rage and aggression, researchers aimed to first isolate and amplify what causes rage in the first place, though an unlikely transmission from primates to humans causes a “rage” virus. This disease turns victims into mindless, fast-running, bloodthirsty figures who attack the uninfected. Those who are infected do not come back from the dead, do not necessarily eat the living, and do not need to have their brains destroyed to be killed. Therefore, it’s easy to see why some audiences would dismiss the film as belonging to part of the zombie subgenre.

However, even if 28 Days Later doesn’t embrace the criteria of the modern zombie, it should still be considered a zombie movie, given that the root of the cinematic concept comes from humans being turned into mindless individuals driven by deadly motives. Zombies existed not only on screen for decades before Romero’s films, but existed in other stories and cultures before White Zombie. Some even argue that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the most famous of all zombie stories, as it focuses on how Dr. Frankenstein brings an amalgam of dead body parts back from the dead. While it’s understandable that the Romero zombie dominated the horror landscape for more than three decades before 28 Days Later, as a whole, the zombie subgenre is far more diverse than this one archetype.

Throughout history, the zombie subgenre has often reflected societal fears. With White Zombie, the American Depression was reflected in how zombies were mindless, soulless figures carrying out the orders of their boss. Night of the Living Dead came in the wake of the space race between the U.S. and Russia, with the source of the infection being rooted in a satellite returning to Earth that might have caused a deadly impact. With Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, in which survivors take refuge in a shopping mall, audiences can witness commentary on the growing nature of capitalism and consumerism, as former shoppers feel compelled to return to the place they so often visited.

In the late ’90s and early 2000s, things like ebola, SARS, and mad cow disease were on the rise, creating panics in communities about these deadly outbreaks. Additionally, while HIV earned newfound recognition in the ’80s, the spread of this deadly virus and its contraction through blood and bodily fluids reached new heights in the public eye in the ’90s, which also resulted in a new awareness and in medical breakthroughs. While 28 Days Later might not have directly leaned into the AIDS panic, the transmission of a deadly virus through blood and bodily fluids offered a close parallel to the real-world disease.

Despite being devoid of the living undead coming back to life and feasting on human flesh, 28 Days Later still fits the criteria of the zombie movie, as it is rooted in a reflection of societal fears and features a narrative including blood-thirsty, mindless monsters who were once people. Writer Garland expressed as much in 2022 when he shared with Empire Magazine, “I’m aware for years and years there’s been debates about that … Over whether or not it’s a zombie movie … It’s a zombie movie … Whatever technical discrepancies may or may not exist, they’re pretty much zombies.”

So while some audiences will remain rigid in what defines a zombie movie, expressing that it must include a certain number of characteristics to be included that are staples of the subgenre, the history of the formula has a much looser set of conditions and is far more diverse than limiting these ghouls to being reanimated corpses. After accepting the wider breadth of expectations of a zombie movie, those more critical fans will be able to expand their horizons and enjoy even more compelling adventures that honor the nature of the zombie subgenre.

What are your favorite zombie movies? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!