We went to the flicks!

We went to the flicks! My two writing friends were going to see ‘28 Years Later‘, the latest in a series of films about zombies – none of which I had seen. I had however seen ‘Shaun of the Dead‘ (clearly nothing like this film, but a spoof of the genre) and I looked up the previous two films, ‘28 Days Later‘, and ‘28 Weeks Later‘. I was quite intrigued and decided to go with them, so off we set to the cinema!

28 Days Later … is a 2002 post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland. It stars Cillian Murphy as a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to discover that the accidental release of a highly contagious, aggression-inducing virus has caused the breakdown of society.
28 Weeks Later is a 2007 post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rowan Joffé, Enrique López Lavigne and Jesus Olmo. It serves as a standalone sequel to 28 Days Later (2002), and is the second instalment in the film series of the same name…  It is set after the events of the first film, depicting the efforts of United States-led NATO forces to establish a safe zone in London, the consequence of two young siblings breaking protocol to find a photograph of their mother, and the resulting reintroduction of the Rage Virus into the safe zone.
28 Years Later is a 2025 post-apocalyptic coming-of-age horror film produced and directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland… In 2031, twenty-eight years later, and after the second outbreak, the Rage Virus has been eradicated from continental Europe, while the British Isles remain in indefinite quarantine. A survivor community lives in Lindisfarne, a tidal island connected by a fortified causeway. Among them are Jamie, a scavenger, his wife, Isla, who has an unknown and mentally debilitating illness, and their 12-year-old son, Spike.
Wikipedia

Without giving too much away, the young lad, Spike finds out there is a doctor on the mainland who may be able to help or cure his mother and sneaks her away from the island in search of him. As you might guess, being a ‘horror/zombie apocalypse’ film there are plenty of rather gruesome scenes and I confess there were times when my eyes were not exactly open. However, there was a very clear narrative, the characters were consistent which made them believable within the film, the setting and different types of scenery were stunning, the acting excellent, and plenty of shocks and surprises. It was gripping and exciting and I really wasn’t sure how or where it would end!

The search for the doctor and then the ensuing pursuit of the characters by the creatures they feared, took them through stunning and varied scenery including Sycamore Gap, famous for its tree and known across the world having been the backdrop to many films. When this film was made, the magnificent and iconic sycamore was still standing which added great poignancy to the scene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycamore_Gap_tree  

The final scenes were filmed in Cheddar Gorge, which is less than a dozen miles from where I live! I’ll never visit there again without keeping my eyes open for a zombie horde!

My featured image is of the feral goats in the Gorge – as far as I know, none are zombies!

The flicks is old fashioned slang for the cinema, flick being old fashioned slang for a film, and I believe it originated with the early moving pictures which flickered when they were shown in the cinema.