28 Days Later

28 Days Later, by definition, does not appear to be a zombie movie when compared to other films within the same genre. Normally, zombies are “undead” creatures where the host body must actually die before it can be reanimated into its zombie state. However, as with I am Legend... although a creature may not fit the specific qualities of a zombie that seem to have been predetermined in a very Romero-favorite sense, can we not assimilate zombie-like creatures into the zombie genre if similar themes apply? The “Infected” of 28 Days Later do not actually die, they only contract the Rage virus which, of course, causes them to exhibit zombie-like qualities such as the perpetual need to consume and little to no self-awareness.

The concept of an “Infected” population seems to become more and more common, exemplified by the popular video game Left 4 Dead. While the player is not entirely sure what the cause of the endless swarms of enemies' physical state is, they are called Infected so we can assume their predicament was caused by something similar to 28 Days Later. Decades ago, zombies were commonly the result of voodoo “magic”, experimentation on dead bodies gone awry, but there very rarely was a case of something like the Rage virus which is the more popular zombie existence theory in fiction.

Why is there less magic and more “science”? Put simply, it's the direction fiction as a whole has migrated toward. Less wizards, more robots (dumbed down in the harshest way possible). We don't necessarily need a detailed explanation of how the zombie outbreak happened, all we really want to know is it's plausible or not. This sense of plausibility is most evident in the newly popular superhero genres, such as Christopher Nolan's revamped Batman movies. Exactly how long will this trend continue? It's hard to say, but what's important to draw from this is that zombie movies appear to be products of their time. Whether offering social commentary or not, they present a view from the opposing side of the mainstream norms. This, I believe, is a trend that won't stop anytime soon.