I’m not really one for zombie movies. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the social critique of Night Of The Living Dead. I admire the gorgeous and spooky world of The Serpent And The Rainbow. And I laughed along with everyone else at Shaun Of The Dead. But as a genre? They’re not really for me.

I love 28 Days Later, however (appreciating there’s debate over whether it can be classed as a zombie movie or not). I’m not going to pretend that part of it isn’t due to Cillian Murphy and Christopher Eccleston, two of my favorite actors. Both did an excellent job on the film. And yes, as an action flick fan, I liked the explosions, fast-moving ‘zombies’, and the scenes of a devastated London.

But what really makes the film for me is something that appeared to be virtually ignored by a lot of the reviewers. It’s sometimes dealt with in passing by other apocalyptic films, but Danny Boyle actually highlighted it: the special dangers women would face in such a world and, as we can now see by reading news stories online, which they currently face in our own.

Many of these films will include an obligatory scene in which a female character (sometimes the heroine, but it rarely matters) is nearly raped by one out-of-control male in order to be saved by another, thus exhibiting the moral and physical superiority of our hero and savior over all the other men around him.