28 Days Later

Shot on Canon XL1 digital video, which everybody hated in 2002 and which is now the reason the first act looks like nothing else.

Boyle emptied central London by closing roads for a few minutes at a time in the early morning over several weeks, with a small crew and no permits to speak of. Jim walking over Westminster Bridge alone is not an effect.

The infected are not zombies, they are alive and enraged, and the change from shambling to sprinting reset the entire genre for the next fifteen years.

The film everybody remembers is the first half. The second half, at the military checkpoint, is where the actual argument is, and the threat becomes a group of soldiers with a plan for the surviving women. Boyle has said the infected were never the point.

There are three endings on the disc. The theatrical one is the least interesting.