I recently rewatched 28 Days Later for the first time in years. The movie’s innovative handheld digital cameras, MTV-era cutting, and brutal, fast zombie-like creatures still pack a wallop 23 years later. At the same time, other films, TV shows, and comics have cribbed so much from Danny Boyle and Alex Garland that the concept feels exceptionally rote. That’s why the idea of the pair returning to the story with 28 Years Later intrigued me so. The world has changed, tastes have changed, and the two creatives’ careers have changed. 28 Years Later does a great job of steering into those changes and delivers a scary, exciting adventure that has more to say about 2025 than you might think.
28 Years Later is not what most people will expect. Technically, the very definition of a legacy sequel—especially given that it’s the first of a planned trilogy—the movie explores a world where death is prevalent and horrors lie around every corner, but that people still need to get on with life. It’s a very British movie in ways beyond characters and setting, and the “Keep Calm and Carry On” ethos permeates.
The idea of a “new normal” is not new to apocalypse media. However, what this movie does that sets it apart is that the line between post-apocalypse and not-apocalyptic is so small. We learn in the movie that mainland Europe was able to stop and eradicate the Rage virus, but that the UK could not. NATO placed it under global quarantine. Earth abandoned these people. Everything about our modern world exists outside of the UK; on the islands, it’s back to agrarian, hunter/gatherer societies. Or, as we also see, endless hordes of infected.
The focal point of 28 Years Later‘s story is a family living in a very small community on an island off the coast of England. The only way on or off the island is a walkable causeway on low tide. As the story begins, father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) prepares to take his 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams) to the mainland for the first time for the all-important rite of passage: the first hunt. Making matters more difficult, the beloved wife and mother of the family, Isla (Jodie Comer), has become bedridden with an ever-worsening condition affecting her body and mind, leaving her memory and personality lapsing. Without access to medicine, all Jamie and Alfie can do is watch. It wears on all of them, leading each to cope in their own way.
The first half of the movie largely depicts Spike and Jamie on the hunt, with their bows and arrows ready to take out infected. We see different strains of infected in 28 Years Later, now with 30 years of time to evolve. Slow-moving, crawling infected, regular running infected, and most terrifying, the roided-up Alphas. All of these are scary, and Boyle keeps up the quick-cutting, flashy visuals to keep the audience on edge. We also get a sense of the rituals and hierarchy that have sprung up within the infected. Again, this isn’t unique for the genre, but what’s here is interesting.
While on their walkabout, Spike spots a fire in the distance, which Jamie refuses to talk about. Spike learns later that this belongs to Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a physician from the old days. Jamie maintains Kelson has lost his mind and become terrifying and homicidal. But Spike, hoping to save his mother, gathers supplies and his mom and heads back to the mainland to try to find this mysterious doctor.
28 Years Later is very much a film of two halves. While the first half has a The Last of Us meets The Road vibe to it, I found myself much more connected to the second half. Spike and Isla’s journey is as sad as it is scary, with an Apocalypse Now vein running through it. We also get metaphysical treatises on everything from death and aging to birth and renewal. It’s easy to see Garland’s more recent penchant for inward exploration on display in the script. While always staying true to the “reality” of the world he and Boyle established in 2002, this movie does not retread any old ground of its own.
When the movie veers closer to the zombie movie tropes we’ve seen for the past three decades, it’s far less effective. The gore is extreme and the scares plentiful, but I much prefer the more contemplative and somber second part. It takes the time to deal with death with more maturity than one would expect.
I’m personally glad this movie chooses to go that direction. The family drama works so well with such solid performances that it goes beyond a survival-horror story and into something oddly universal. Comer, Fiennes, and especially Williams really deliver and I wanted even more of them talking. Yes, people do get their heads torn off. And yes, the set-up for the next film does feel completely out of left field. But when 28 Years Later works—and it does for me more than it doesn’t—I think it’s something close to beautiful.
⭐ (4 of 5)
28 Years Later hits theaters Friday, June 20.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
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