Film

At once a perfectly orchestrated symphony of horror and a lacerating allegory for the botched occupation of Iraq, this follow-up to Danny Boyle’s fine 2002 zombie thriller 28 Days Later… is also that rare sequel that eats its precursor raw for breakfast.

Weeks picks up where Days left off, in a Britain desolated by a virus that instantly turns victims into shrieking, red-eyed and very swiftly moving cannibals. A clutch of survivors have been furtively waiting out the end of the world in a boarded-up rural cottage, but their luck runs out ten minutes into the movie. Carlyle (Trainspotting) alone survives the ensuing, heart-stopping bloodbath, at the cost of forsaking his beloved wife (McCormack).

The action shifts to London’s Isle of Dogs, a.k.a. “the Green Zone,” where a guilt-ridden Carlyle, now employed by an American-led reconstruction initiative, is reunited with his son and daughter. When the kids break quarantine rules by crossing a bridge from the island into mainland London, their disobedience leads to the discovery of a rare gene that prevents some of the infected from turning homicidal. But that hopeful knowledge comes at a terrible price, and soon the well-intended American military commander (Elba) must order his forces to “abandon selective targeting.” After that, things get a wee bit grim…