Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have never made obvious choices. Take 2002’s 28 Days Later in which they — Boyle as director, Garland as screenwriter — revolutionised zombie cinema with sprinting, blood-vomiting hordes. (Okay, technically ‘infected’, not reanimated-corpse zombies). It reinvigorated not just the walking dead, but grand, apocalyptic storytelling in the public consciousness. Over two decades later, end-of-the-world stories are old news — fungal armageddons and civilisation-razing outbreaks are mainstream TV fare. But with 28 Years Later, Boyle and Garland return (they were largely uninvolved with 2007’s Weeks) to breathe thrilling life back into an overexposed genre. There isn’t an obvious choice in sight.
It begins, for instance, with the Teletubbies; Tinky-Winky crashes into frame. Before you can say, “Big hug!”, a gaggle of Scottish children are besieged by rage-infected adults, a horrifying opening flashback drenched in dark humour. From there, we leap — yes — 28 years later, to a British Isles cut off from the outside world. The infected still roam the wilderness. On Lindisfarne, aka Holy Island, lies a survivors’ civilisation, attached to the mainland by a causeway only accessible when the tide recedes. There lives 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams, an outstanding new talent), a boy who’s never been somewhere where he couldn’t see the sea. “It’s so big,” he gasps when his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) escorts him inland for the first time.
As a pure horror experience, 28 Years Later is ferocious.
Daring decisions abound. The infected aren’t just stark raging mad, but stark naked. Jodie Comer, as Spike’s mother Isla, is ill and losing her grip on reality for much of the film, introduced screaming: “Are you trying to kill our fucking baby, you cunt?!” Ralph Fiennes’ mysterious Dr. Kelson looks like Colonel Kurtz, but speaks more like Grand Budapest Hotel’s genteel M. Gustave. It’s partially shot on iPhones, aping and updating Days’ scuzzy digital-camcorder look; kills are captured by bullet-time camera rigs, delivered in jarring multi-angle edits. Where the original was lean and mean, stretches of Years are soulful, almost mythical in tone, exploring a post-technological Britain rooted in rural traditionalism.
Boyle and Garland have much on their minds. 28 Years Later brims with thematic resonances, a canvas on which to illustrate a national identity-crisis. There is a clear Brexit analogy in a country experiencing isolationism — the rage-ravaged Britain secluded from the world; its people secluded from their own land. The distinctly British post-apocalyptic society is part Blitz-spirit wartime-rationing aesthetic, part medieval fortress — Boyle repeatedly cuts to black-and-white World War footage. Is this the nebulous ‘good old days’ that some Brits yearned for? Is survival inherently regressive? Years is also about the stories we tell ourselves, the myth-building that creates a nation, a fiction rather than truth.
Those heady ideas are richly woven, but worn lightly. Worry not: as a pure horror experience, 28 Years Later is ferocious, fizzing with adrenaline. The mainland thrums with a pervasive sense of immediate danger; when the infected arrive (and boy, do they arrive), it is breathlessly tense. They too, have evolved — there are I Am Legend-ish hints that, maybe, the infected are their own civilisation now. And like in The Last Of Us, there are several kinds: “fast ones”, “slow ones”, and most terrifyingly, the hard-as-nails “Alphas”, with a Predator-like predilection for ripping spines clean from bodies. The film’s opening half, in particular, is phenomenal — an electrifying exercise in terror, amplified by Young Fathers’ astonishing score.
Which is to say that the second half doesn’t quite grip the throat as tightly. It never bores; every moment brings a discovery. But by design, this is a wild, unruly odyssey, a coming-of-age tale that zigs and zags. It won’t satisfy everyone. There are brief moments of dodgy CGI (an unconvincing herd of deer), minor pacing flubs, and Comer’s brilliant performance is in service of a character that’s tough to get a handle on. With two more films to come, it closes on a cliffhanger.
But this is brave, bold stuff — full-strength Boyle meets undiluted Garland. The ‘Lust For Life’ beat soundtracking Spike’s introduction conjures big Trainspotting energy; Garland’s metaphysical Annihilation and folkloric Men are felt throughout. And still, it’s pure 28 — the sequel the original deserves, culminating in a bonkers final minute set to be the most divisive ending of 2025; the most un-obvious choice in a film full of them. We’re blessed to receive it.
