almost witty

As you may know, I’m a bit of a film fan. I also have a slightly obsessive interest in apocalyptic fiction and Hollywood blockbusters. So why on earth am I most likely to avoid 28 Weeks Later and Spiderman 3?

Simply put, they both scare me in totally different ways.

Spiderman 1 was a great film, fantastic on pretty much every level. Almost too fantastic. I was a bit of an emotional wreck at the last scene – how could Peter Parker do that to his gorgeous simpering Mary Jane? How could any red-costumed or red-blooded heterosexual walk away from that? Because of that, I’ve somehow managed to avoid Spiderman 2 – despite having it on DVD – and will most likely manage to “never get round to seeing” Spiderman 3.

As for 28 Weeks Later, it’s because of my fear for zombies. I’m not sure what it is about them, but I do get terrified at the prospect of seeing zombies on the screen. When Shaun of the Dead slithered into cinemas, I really wanted to see it – hey, it’s Spaced + apocalyptic fiction + London, what’s there not to like? – and so resolved to get over my fear of zombies. After all, they’re just a movie construct and fantasy, right?

Almost. My zombie-fear-aversion routine was to watch as many zombie films as I could, in growing order of horror-ness until I thought I was desensitized to zombies, and then perhaps I could manage Shaun of the Dead. So the first film I tried was Resident Evil: Apocalypse. It’s a 15-rated film, starring Milla Jovovich and it seems like a B-movie. What could be that scary about it?

Who knows? Because when it came to the scene with the shuffling zombies chasing one poor civillian up a metal staircase, I had to switch off the DVD. I just couldn’t handle it.

I did somehow manage to see 28 Days Later – there aren’t that many zombie scenes in it, after all. But I did walk out of the cinema absolutely shaken, in need of a stiff drink and some human conversation. So I knocked on my then room-mate’s door – but he told me to go away and I felt even more depressed and dejected that night. It later turned out, of course, that he’d brought a girl back to his room and was steadily making more intimate human conversation with her.

So I might just have to avoid the cinema for the next couple of days!

Tags: 28dayslater, 28weekslater, cinema, film, Films, spiderman, zombie, zombies