Well, here we are again. The zombies are back after being quelled. It would have been terrific is the writers devised a clever way to revive the extinguished plague. Instead the absurd plot posits that two bratty idiot kids bring about the 2nd zombie outbreak; that their half-zombie mom is the vessel; and that their dad (her husband) who happens to be the guy running the safe zone is the first full-on zombie, with an alpha security clearance. It's nice that they could keep the entire plot in the family. It's like Dickens' lost zombie novel where everyone (again...) turns out to be related.

Rarely has the solution to a zombie invasion been this simple; target and kill this whole stupid family in the first few minutes of the movie; the stupid kids, the stupid father, even loving mom. That should do it. God how I came to hate this family. At one point the boy brat asks, "Do you think Mom is alive?" when he might better ask "Do you think our genetically-inherited stupidity caused all of this?"

Why have the people in zombie movies never heard of zombies? Why don't characters who freak out when a person appears and disappears over an edit, have the knowledge I do from ghost movies? Why do characters spend half a horror movie not acknowledging what they've seen? Why does the world of knowledge acquired from film not exist for characters in films? This idea would save audiences a lot of annoyance and crap movies.

I guess it's only fair that it doesn't start well because it also has no ending. It's nice to see London go up in flames though.

This follow-up to the Danny Boyle horror flick 28 DAYS LATER takes the premise from the first film and creates a fresh, pulse-pounding horror flick that stands up on its own right as well as being marginally better than the original. Although Boyle only returns here as executive producer (also shooting some second-unit stuff) and the original film's cast are nowhere to be seen, this retains the bleakness and horror of 28 DAYS LATER while adding to the experience. Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo – this is his first English film – calls the shots this time around and he does well.

My only complaint is with his excessive use of the 'shaky-cam', that annoying way of shooting action in which the camera jerks all over the place making it impossible to pick out anything more than vague shapes. Here it's taken to a nauseating, pointless extreme, although I'm pleased to say that it doesn't seem so bad after it's first used in the initial scene. The shoulder-cam on Robert Carlyle, in comparison, is both inventive and effective.

The film lets loose right from the word go with a brief, 5-minute reprise of the classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD zombie scenario. After that, we're treated to half an hour's build up, with plenty more spooky shots of the deserted London streets – these make for very powerful moments. Of course, the rage virus comes back to the fore, and once more the infected roam the streets. Zombies in all but name, these killers are super-fast and bloodthirsty, and quite terrifying. Fresnadillo tends to shoot around them or show them in quick blood-drenched glimpses which makes them all the more frightening. The film has some fun with the US army, drafted in with echoes of the Iraq occupation, and their heavy-handed way of dealing with the situation is perhaps even more frightening than the infected themselves.

Essentially the film is a series of scary set-pieces, each more outlandish and drama than the next. The filmmakers stress this is a family drama at heart, and certainly the actions and reactions of four family members are central to the movie. Catherine McCormack (BRAVEHEART) is disturbing and frightening as the mother, bitten by the infected, who becomes a carrier rather than an infected herself. I didn't recognise her from the Mel Gibson film; she seems to have changed completely in the 12 years since.

Robert Carlyle carries the first half of the film on his shoulders and his performance is outstanding – probably the best I've seen him give. The film introduces two new young actors who play the brother and sister around whom the film is focused; Imogen Poots is a fragile blonde beauty, while Mackintosh Muggleton, despite his silly name, gives a performance that belies his youth in terms of maturity and delivery. The rest of the characters are little more than stereotypes, although TROY's Rose Byrne stands out as a sympathetic scientist, and Jeremy Renner steals his scenes as a genuinely heroic character, a US soldier who rebels against his orders and helps the protagonists to make their escape.

Looking back on the film, I find many scenes fresh in my mind. The rotted bodies in the Tube and in the deserted shops and homes set the horrific atmosphere well. The scenes of soldiers shooting civilians and later fire-bombing the city of London are disturbing in the extreme. I love the shots of the toxic gas clouds slowly moving through the deserted streets. The bit in the car is edge-of-the-seat and the chase through the streets at night is innovative and cleverly-done, no day-for-night shooting here. There's an interlude in Regent's Park in which the infected are dispatched with the blades of a helicopter which rivals Peter Jackson's BRAINDEAD for splatter.

The infected make-up is outstanding, truly terrifying, with blood-red contact lenses and gallons of the red stuff all over their mouths and bodies. Fresnadillo makes a great use of London, with location shooting giving a real sense of the capital's character. The downbeat ending is a little hard to swallow, but I can live with that. Truly, this is a disturbing and effective horror film; the gore flows thick and fast, although the low-light is a gruesome eye-gouging that's hard to watch even in the days of HOSTEL and SAW III. 28 WEEKS LATER is a great film that surpasses the original in most ways, and I wouldn't mind seeing another in the series. 28 MONTHS LATER, anyone?

In the country nearby London, Don (Robert Carlyle),his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) and a few survivors live hidden in a farmhouse. When infected people break in the house, Dan panics and does not help his wife to escape, running away and leaving Alice trapped inside the room. Twenty eight weeks after the outbreak that annihilated the population of Great Britain, London is considered safe and the British survivors return under the coordination of the American Army, that keeps the city under permanent surveillance. The teenager Tammy (Imogen Poots) and her young son Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) travel back from Spain to live with their father Don in London. They miss their mother and decide to escape to their old house to retrieve pictures and some other personal belongings. However, they find Alice surprisingly alive and the Army brings her to the base. After some blood test, the biologist Scarlet (Rose Byrne) discovers that Alice is a carrier of the lethal virus and somehow has immunity to it. Meanwhile, Don sneaks through the facility to say how sorry he is to Alice, who forgives him. When he kisses her, he is immediately contaminated, spreading a new epidemic.

I usually do not like sequels, but "28 Weeks Later" is a good complement of "28 Days Later". The story follows the tragic epidemic in Great Britain basically from where the original movie ended, and in spite of having some flaws, it works. The frantic edition of the action scenes is confused, too close, with many cuts, in a pace of video-clip and does not offer the necessary continuity of the action to give the big picture of what is happening; actually it is terrible. The story is predictable, but entertains. The conclusion indicates the possibility of another sequel in Paris, which I hope does not come true. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Extermínio 2" ("Extermination 2")