review: 28 DAYS LATER (Blu-ray)

Fox  //  Buy from Amazon.com Hailed as the most frightening film since The Exorcist, acclaimed Director Danny Boyle's visionary take on zombie horror "isn't just scary, it's absolutely terrifying" (Access Hollywood). An infirmary patient awakens from a coma to an empty room in a vacant hospital in a deserted city. A powerful virus, which locks victims into a permanent state of murderous rage, has transformed the world around him into a seemingly desolate wasteland. Now a handful of survivors must fight to stay alive, unaware that the worst is yet to come! "28 Days Later" is an interesting little film that was far more interesting & innovative when it was first released, as the zombie genre was not quite yet as watered down as it is now, and plus this film took a very different (and quite a realistic) slant on the whole "zombie" motif. Plus, the film was shot on digital video and given a theatrical release - the first "real" (not mini or experimental) film to be given that honor. It's a well-done film, with quite a suspenseful, gripping storyline and ample action & boogy-boogy scares to entertain throughout. Personally, as much as I'm a fan & huge booster of shot-on-video films, I just didn't like how this film looked... and the look is no better on Blu-ray, as it just presents a clearer version of the muddied original picture quality. All in all, its an entertaining flick, but I would give its sequel, "28 Weeks Later," a much stronger recommendation than this one. Video Presented in a 1080p 1.85:1 widescreen transfer, no doubt this film looks as good as it possibly can on Blu-ray - unfortunately, due to the quality of the original source material, this just isn't that great looking of a film. It strikes me as somewhat unfair to gripe about the quality of a Blu-ray disc, when there is no fault with the transfer itself, but based purely on my visual experience, I have to knock a couple points off this disc's score simply due to the fact that the shot-on-video film just doesn't look all that great. Audio The lossless DTS-HD Master Audio mix is amazing - even listening to just the 1.5 Mbps DTS mix is excellent and far superior to a regular Dolby 5.1 surround mix. Extras audio commentary w/ director & writer deleted scenes & alternate endings (4 of 'em!) "Pure Rage" making-of featurette Jacknife Lee music video photo galleries trailers Closing Thoughts Interesting shot-on-video film + lots of interesting extras = worth a look, but not much of an improvement over the standard def DVD version