28 Days Later helped launch zombie genre

Danny Boyle’s post-apocalyptic disaster flick 28 Days Later has had a lasting effect on film and television.

The authentically creepy 28 Days Later.

Director Danny Boyle drove one of the first cabs off the rank in the zombie revival with the 2002 British film 28 Days Later (Sunday, 11pm, Ten). In it, a quartet of survivors in the wake of a blood-borne disease nicknamed “rage” escape London for Manchester, only to encounter a ragtag and hostile band of soldiers. Character actor Brendan Gleeson has a moving role as a caring father, and the film was written by Alex Garland, author and director of the recently released Ex Machina, which stars Gleeson’s son Domhnall Gleeson. The scenes of a deserted London, which were shot in short bursts just after dawn on weekends, are authentically creepy.

Why anyone would attempt to remake notorious director Sam Peckinpah’s brutal 1971 home invasion thriller — which famed The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael called “a fascist work of art” — is anyone’s guess, but director Rod Lurie did just that four years ago, transplanting the action from rural Cornwall to deepest Mississippi for his take on Straw Dogs (Saturday, 12.30am, Seven). James Marsden is OK in the meek-husband-turned-ruthless-defender role originally played by Dustin Hoffman (who refuses to discuss the original to this day), but the film belongs to Alexander Skarsgard’s Charlie, the sinister antagonist who leads the charge against the interlopers from out of state. If the film has any lasting value, it will be to pique interest in the memorable original, which is readily available.

Memory can be a tricky thing, but lingering memories of the rarely screened 1973 May-December romance Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (Sunday, 12.25am, ABC) are pleasant. Timothy Bottoms, just two years removed from his memorable role in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show, is a teen drifter who encounters the older Maggie Smith, who had just starred in the terrific adaptation of Graham Greene’s Travels with My Aunt, while on a bike holiday in Spain. The filmmaking talent is formidable behind the scenes as well: writer Alvin Sargent would later pen Ordinary People; director Alan J. Pakula next made The Parallax View; and cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth had also shot the landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The third entry in the improbably successful animated franchise, 2009’s Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (Saturday, 7pm, Ten), continues to benefit from the vocal interplay among actors, particularly John Leguizamo, whose manic sloth Sid once again steals the show — a valuable tool for a peaceful Saturday night.

In the light of Robin Williams’s tragic death, the 1998 dramatic comedy Patch Adams (Monday, 9.30pm, One) acquires fresh poignancy. Williams plays the real-life doctor who believed laughter was the best medicine. It may be emotionally over the top, but the film is how many will remember the comedian.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (PG)

3 stars

Saturday, 7pm, Ten

28 Days Later (MA15+)

4 stars

Sunday, 11pm, Ten

Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (PG)

3.5 stars

Sunday, 12.25am, ABC