Waking from a coma in a deserted London hospital, bicycle courier Jim (Academy Award®-winner Cillian Murphy, 2023 Best Actor, Oppenheimer) takes to the deserted city streets in a state of mystified confusion. Joining forces with another group of survivors, Jim soon learns that a deadly virus was released. Is there still a glimmer of hope for humanity — or has the deadly “rage” virus found its way to foreign shores and infected the entire planet?
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Video Quality
28 Days Later comes to 4K UHD Blu-Ray in its original 1.85:1 with a transfer that will make most wonder why they even bothered with a 4K UHD presentation, but there is more to consider than meets the eye. The film was previously released on Blu-Ray by 20th Century Fox in 2007, but that release has been out of print for a while, and there were moments in the past few years where it was going for big money on the secondary market. The rights have now transferred over to Sony, and they are bringing this film back in print via a new 4K remaster. Now, this film was purposefully shot (mostly) on an early digital video format that allowed the crew to shoot more economically in the locales they needed to capture, plus it gave the film a degraded aesthetic that suited the narrative.
To conduct this 4K remaster, director Danny Boyle supervised a return to the original video source that was color corrected and given a Dolby Vision pass. With the source being from an early consumer-grade digital video camera, the film is never not going to look pretty poor by most objective standards. The important things is to get the film to look as close to how it is supposed to look as possible. A Blu-Ray disc is not provided in this package, but there have been numerous reports of additional processing and sharpening that was applied to the 2007 release that made it look even worse than it was supposed to. While many assumed this was due to how it was filmed, this new remaster has stripped away all of the bad stuff and left audiences with a presentation that is completely accurate to the digital scuzziness without any extra shortcomings.
While there may be a certain expectation for how a film should look in 4K, having this movie presented on 4K UHD Blu-Ray does allow it to exist in its most satisfying state. The biggest benefit appears to be from the utilization of Dolby Vision/HDR, which allows the feature to dial in to the hues that were always desired by the creative team. Every color, dark enclave, and blinding light viewed on the original DVD is rendered so much better on 4K UHD, as contrast and color accuracy is balanced brilliantly. And while the film mostly maintains a grimy aesthetic throughout, the ending does switch to 35mm for a few minutes, and this is when you fully feel the impact of this 4K UHD release. The film theoretically may have looked similar on Blu-Ray if they used this new master, but the final section makes the case for why this 4K UHD was the right choice.
The only real knock against this presentation is what appears to be an unintentional substitution of a shot of an infected person’s face when descending upon a car, which now stays back a little to observe the action instead of inserting the disturbing face. We have heard this is likely due to the team going back to the original source and not realizing that this shot was later inserted in the editing process. We hate when films are altered in any form, but this issue is so minor that most audiences would not miss the shot if it was not pointed out to them. We still encourage you to contact Sony at consumer@sphecustomersupport.sony.com to report the issue and advocate for a replacement with us, but the film has more going for it with this release than one mistake can wreck. Sony has brought the film back into print with a presentation that allows the film to look its best.
Audio Quality
This 4K UHD Blu-Ray release boasts a new Dolby Atmos track supervised by Boyle, in addition to the original DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track. The Dolby Atmos experience tastefully expands the soundscape to become more immersive, but we are glad that Sony kept the 5.1 track as an option for purists. This disc brings plenty of thrilling moments to life from the earliest moments with a depth and clarity of sound that is just exquisite. As things ramp up, the sounds of mounting chaos rocket through your side and rear speakers. Each sound is precisely placed with perfect spatial awareness.
The track engages all of the active channels with panning effects and sounds of the action that really make you feel like you are in the thick of the madness. The addition of height channels expands the setting in really rewarding ways. The utilization of environmental effects comes through in a natural way. There is an exceptional amount of activity in the low-end which will keep your house shaking with every development. Dialogue comes through clearly without getting overshadowed by the score or any sound effects. Sony delivered on all fronts, so those with a good surround sound setup should have a blast with this one. Optional English, English SDH, Chinese, French, Spanish, and more subtitles are provided.
Special Features
Sony has provided 28 Days Later with a sleek new SteelBook featuring artwork that is pleasing in person. Video of the SteelBook can be found at the top of this review.
- Audio Commentary: Director Danny Boyle and Screenwriter Alex Garland provide a commentary track in which they discuss the production process, the motivations behind shooting on video, the filming locations, working with chimpanzees, the work of the performers, and more.
- Pure Rage – The Making of 28 Days Later: A nearly 25-minute featurette in which the cast, creative team, and experts discuss the real-world possibility of a global pandemic, the qualities of the characters in the story, how they achieved different effects in the movie, and more.
- Deleted Scenes: A ten-minute selection of unused material is provided here, along with an optional audio commentary from Danny Boyle.
- Alternate Endings: There are four alternate endings provided totaling 23 minutes which are provided with optional audio commentary from Danny Boyle.
- Jacknife Lee – “Ave Maria” Music Video (6:23)
- Production Still Gallery with Danny Boyle Commentary (18:11)
- Running Polaroid Gallery with Intro by Danny Boyle (4:16)
- Animated Storyboards (1:32)
- Theatrical Trailer (2:09)
Final Thoughts
28 Days Later was a shot of adrenaline in the zombie/infection subgenre that would shift what audiences expected from their survival tales. What director Danny Boyle achieves here is quite special, as he skillfully balances the nightmarish developments needed by horror fans with an eye for social commentary and character development. This film is very smart and very pulse-pounding in equal measure, which has been the key to its longevity over the past 20 plus years. That and the presence of a pitch perfect Cillian Murphy, who has us rooting for him the entire time. Having this film out of print for any amount of time was unfortunate, so we are glad it has returned for fans to add to their collections. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released a 4K UHD Blu-Ray featuring an A/V presentation that gets the most from the source and a fine selection of archival special features. Recommended
28 Days Later is currently available to purchase on 4K UHD Blu-Ray SteelBook.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the 4K UHD Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
