The classic 2000s horror movie that didn’t scare Stephen King

Danny Boyle is a 2002 post-apocalyptic thriller “28 Days Later” (which was not available to watch for spelling) Not technically a zombie movie. It follows the spread of a newly invented virus called simply the Rage Virus, which invades the brains of its victims and turns them into angry, unthinking monsters. Their eyes also turn sooty and bloodshot. The “zombies” in “28 Days Later” are actually just people whose humanity has been removed and whose rage has been magnified to a thousand. Unlike most zombie movies, the infected people run fast and moan loudly. It was “28 Days Later” that sparked the still-raging “slow zombies vs. fast zombies” debate among horror fans.

Boyle shot “28 Days Later” on the cheap, using then-new digital cameras to give the film a disturbing documentary feel. It’s particularly raw in his early scenes of Cillian Murphy’s Jim wandering the empty streets of London. With a budget of $8 million, “28 Days Later” grossed more than $84.6 million at the global box office, sparking new interest in zombie cinema. It also came in the wake of September 11, and audiences were feeling particularly fearful at the time. Boyle’s film tapped into some real cultural fears.

Critics responded positively to “28 Days Later” – it received an approval rating of 87% Rotten tomatoes — but filmmakers sanctified it almost immediately, holding it in high regard as one of the best horror films of the new decade. It was followed by the sequel “28 Weeks Later” in 2007 Boyle’s ’28 Years Later’ (Watch the Trailer) It is currently scheduled to hit theaters on June 20, 2025.

One person who didn’t care for “28 Days Later” was Stephen King. In 2007, the famous horror author admitted as much Entertainment Weekly Of the many horror films he’s seen recently, “28 Days Later” simply didn’t scare him. He loved the style and story of the film, but he wasn’t afraid.

King, of course, wasn’t just trying to be macho. There are a lot of young people who take up the sport of watching horror movies specifically to challenge their ability to scare. King, a horror writer who loved fear, wasn’t trying to prove his constitution; He was offering legitimate criticism. He just wasn’t afraid. Impressed, yes. But not afraid. When it came to horror films released in the late 1990s or early 2000s, King preferred a different, low-budget, organically designed surprise horror film. In his own words:

“(I) liked 28 Days Later, but I didn’t love it. The bottom line with horror movies doesn’t change from year to year; their job is to scare you silly, and you either do that or you don’t.” “28 Days Later” interested me — I have a soft spot for survivors in empty cities, as anyone who has read “The Situation” knows — but there was nothing in “28 Days Later” (as there was in “Blair”). “The Witch Project”) came back to haunt me later that evening, after the bedroom light went out.

And he is fair. The zombies in “28 Days Later” are a threat, but they’re also nothing new to fans of “Night of the Living Dead” and similar films. “The Stand,” incidentally, was the apocalyptic novel King first wrote in 1978 and then expanded significantly in 1990. This book also includes a global pandemic that wipes out the bulk of the population, and depicts characters spending a lot of time wandering abandoned. Cities.

Meanwhile, “The Blair Witch Project” (which scared King so much that he shut it down) is a 1999 found footage horror film about three amateur documentary filmmakers who get lost in the woods while searching for stories of a witch who supposedly lives there. The witch is never seen, but the film is filled with eerie sounds, real fear, and a dark and ambiguous ending. It certainly makes the viewer go to sleep with the lights on. For King, getting scared is really the ultimate test of a horror film, and The Blair Witch Project succeeds on that front. “28 Days Later” simply didn’t happen.