In the age of IP overload—where every other movie is a reboot, sequel, or extended universe entry—it’s rare to walk into a theater and actually feel surprised. Before the lights even dim, we’ve already guessed which callbacks and easter eggs are coming. The whole experience starts feeling like fast food: we know the menu, we know the flavors, and the studios are just serving up another variation of a combo we’ve eaten a dozen times before.
That’s why Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later” feels like such a shock to the system. This isn’t just a sequel—it’s a genuinely weird, occasionally tender, and deeply inventive reimagining of what a zombie movie (and a franchise film) can be. Sure, it technically continues the storyline from “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later,” but this entry goes rogue in all the best ways. It’s less about ticking off nostalgia boxes and more about showing us something completely unexpected.
Let’s rewind for a second. Boyle directed “28 Days Later” back in 2002, jumpstarting the modern zombie renaissance with a gritty, fast-paced thriller about a virus turning people into raging, bloodthirsty maniacs. That movie was penned by Alex Garland, who would go on to become a sci-fi auteur in his own right with films like “Ex Machina” and “Annihilation.” Garland also produced the follow-up, “28 Weeks Later,” but didn’t write or direct it. Now, more than two decades after the original film, Boyle and Garland are back together—and they’ve brought some wild ideas with them.
“28 Years Later” opens not with chaos in London, but with an almost absurdly serene image: a group of kids in the Scottish Highlands watching an episode of “Teletubbies.” It’s a moment of eerie calm that’s quickly obliterated when infected creatures come crashing through the doors in a frenzy of violence. One child manages to escape the carnage, running to his father—a priest who believes the apocalypse is straight out of Revelation. The priest meets a grim fate, but the boy lives on. We won’t see him again until much later, and that cryptic prologue gives way to the meat of the movie: a strange, elegiac, and often poetic tale of survival and self-discovery.
Fast forward 28 years. We’re now on Holy Island, a real-life tidal island in Northumberland, England, cut off from the mainland except during low tide when a causeway appears. This isolated community has managed to survive by retreating from the horrors of the world, forming its own traditions, rules, and rituals. The focus here is on a 12-year-old boy named Spike (played with quiet intensity by Alfie Williams), who lives with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his ailing mother Isla (Jodie Comer).
Jamie is the kind of rugged, emotionally guarded dad you’d expect in a post-apocalyptic setting. He’s raising Spike in the community’s ways, preparing him for the symbolic “hunt” that boys undertake when they come of age. Spike, meanwhile, is torn between his childish curiosity and the heavy responsibilities placed on him—especially as he takes care of his bedridden mother, who suffers from hallucinations and chronic migraines. Comer brings real emotional texture to Isla, portraying a woman caught between lucidity and confusion, burdened by illness yet fiercely protective of her son.
Boyle spends just enough time in the village to unsettle us. It feels safe on the surface—there are celebrations, rituals, and close-knit bonds—but there’s also something deeply off. The villagers are devout, almost cult-like in their beliefs, and the place is steeped in religious iconography. The cinematography here by Anthony Dod Mantle is lush and tactile, with the greenery of the island offering a fairytale-like contrast to the violence lurking just beyond its borders.
Things take a sharp turn when Spike goes on his first hunt with his father. That’s when we see what the world outside looks like—and how the virus has mutated. It’s not just the sprinting infected we remember from the original films. Now there are multiple types of zombies, including slow-moving grotesques and one terrifying behemoth called the Alpha. This monster is not only physically imposing but disturbingly intelligent, a new breed that raises the stakes dramatically.
The Alpha’s appearance cuts the hunt short, and father and son take refuge in the woods. That’s where they spot a mysterious fire burning in the distance—set, we later learn, by a reclusive doctor named Ian Kelson (played with twitchy charisma by Ralph Fiennes). When Spike eventually learns a painful secret about his father, he flees the island with his mother, hoping Kelson might be able to help cure her. What follows is an odyssey that blends horror with a twisted kind of fantasy.
It’s during this stretch that the film really breaks free from genre constraints. Instead of ratcheting up the gore, Boyle dials things down emotionally. Spike’s journey becomes a kind of fractured “Wizard of Oz,” complete with strange encounters, cryptic messages, and dreamlike landscapes. Along the way, they meet a Swedish soldier with news from the outside world and even a pregnant zombie in a scene that veers into the bizarre. The tone is hard to pin down, but that’s exactly what makes the film so fascinating.
Garland’s writing here is playful yet precise, full of thematic threads that don’t always get tied up neatly. There’s a whole subplot involving militarism that nods to “28 Weeks Later,” but it’s left mostly dangling. There’s also the religious metaphor introduced at the beginning, which never fully pays off—though that may be intentional, as a sequel titled “The Bone Temple” is already on the way. Despite these narrative gaps, the film remains compelling because it’s powered by emotion, not exposition.
Spike and Isla’s relationship is the heart of the movie. Comer’s performance captures the fragility of someone drifting between states of awareness, while Williams delivers a breakout turn as a kid forced to grow up too fast. There’s a gentle absurdity to some of their interactions, and Boyle isn’t afraid to let moments linger—to let quiet, awkward, or tender beats unfold without rushing to the next scare.
Boyle also throws in unexpected visual flourishes. There are freeze-frame kill shots reminiscent of Garland’s work in “Civil War,” and surreal interludes where archival footage from old British war films is intercut with scenes of villagers preparing for battle. Not all of these choices work—some feel like loose ends—but they give the film an idiosyncratic energy that keeps you engaged even when things get a little messy.
The music by Young Fathers adds to the film’s off-kilter vibe. Ethereal and rhythmic, it underscores the emotional shifts from horror to whimsy to despair. And while the film doesn’t follow typical franchise rules—no returning characters, no MCU-style setups—it does care deeply about legacy. Specifically, it’s interested in how we remember those we’ve lost.
By the final act, “28 Years Later” transforms into something unexpectedly profound. It uses the concept of “memento mori”—a reminder of mortality—as a thematic anchor. This isn’t a movie about surviving just to keep going. It’s about pausing to reflect on what’s been lost, on the human cost of violence and survival. In a franchise filled with sprinting undead, that quiet meditation feels downright revolutionary.
If “28 Days Later” was about panic, and “28 Weeks Later” was about collapse, then “28 Years Later” is about reckoning. Not just with the virus, or the world it created, but with the emotional aftermath. With grief, memory, and the ache of growing up too soon.
There’s a lot here that could’ve gone off the rails. A zombie movie that opens with “Teletubbies”? A subplot involving a possibly mythical doctor in the wilderness? A meandering journey filled with strange little encounters that don’t always lead anywhere? But Boyle’s steady direction and the cast’s commitment pull it all together into something touching and unforgettable.
Is it scary? Sometimes. Bloody? Yes. But more than anything, it’s sincere—and that’s what makes it hit harder than expected. “28 Years Later” isn’t trying to top its predecessors in gore or body count. Instead, it dares to be different. To be odd. To be, in some ways, beautiful.
In an era when most sequels are just corporate continuity exercises, this one reminds us what a movie can still be: surprising, personal, and—ironically for a zombie flick—very much alive.
