28 Years Later is the third entry into the franchise that started with 28 Days Later, also directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, in 2002 and 28 Weeks Later in 2007. It takes place much later, as is evident from the title, and follows the main character, a 12 year old boy named Spike, who lives on an isolated island off the British coast and only accessible at low tide with a land bridge. He leaves the island for the first time with his father to kill an infected as a rite of passage, but discovers more than he intended on the trip, making him rethink how he sees the world. The film is excellent but needs to be experienced to fully grasp its greatness, so this review will be short, but please go watch this.

Memento Mori

This film may seem like just another zombie movie. Although those who have seen the previous ones know it’s more than that, it has been almost 2 decades since the last entry. There may be zombies in the film, but they serve as an environmental framing device. Since it’s been almost 30 years since the outbreak, there isn’t a panic or confusion in dealing with them – they are like wild animals that you have to be wary of. Instead, this is a coming of age movie full of humanity and compassion. 

Alfie Williams does an excellent job playing a 12 year old doing his best to seem composed and mature as he experiences the harsh realities of the world for the first time. He begins the story feeling like he’s grown up but ends the movie having grown up a lot more and realizing he isn’t even as grown as he thought at the beginning of the story. A big part of that journey is dealing with death. I won’t get into specifics of the story here, but Spike has to come face to face with death in many forms, whether it’s killing zombies or seeing humans die. Alex Garland’s writing is so poignant in balancing the horror and the serenity of death and how that may affect a child while also teaching him lessons, thus making him better prepared for the world he lives in. 

The key figure in driving home the central theme of the film is the always-great Ralph Fiennes. I won’t reveal his character as he shows up in the latter parts of the runtime, but his role is critical in framing what comes before and showing how to view the world in a different way than many others have chosen to see it. The visual aspects of the area where Ralph Fiennes is serves as another reminder of the thin line between horror and hope, and how death is a reality that doesn’t need to be feared, but rather taken as a reminder.

Every Frame A Painting

It would be criminal to talk about the film without addressing how beautiful the film looks. The writing and the themes from Garland lay the foundation for a film that would likely have been good no matter who directed it, but true greatness comes from excelling in different aspects all at once, and the cinematography is simply fantastic. I won’t go on and on about it because this is something that needs to be seen, so here’s a gallery of some great shots. Shoutout to the amazing work of Anthony Dod Mantle and Danny Boyle for these. If you want to see more, you know where to go.

High Budget Experiment

Something that strikes you pretty early in the film is the experimental way it’s been put together. There are lots of intentional rough edges and fun shots in the dark that make this feel visceral and off-putting, but in a good way. You never feel comfortable as you see sudden infra-red shots of zombies in the dark or hear an intense poem blasted with old military footage. 

This could be an aspect that throws you off and you don’t end up appreciating it, but if you’re a cinema sicko, you are going to love these. Most notably, the kill shots on the zombies are some fantastic video-game-like choices that hit hard every time. 

And then you realize most of this film is filmed on iPhones and that they created iPhone rigs with 8 to 20 devices to make some of it work. This harkens back to the first film being filmed primarily on a digital camcorder, with this being the evolution. It’s a really cool choice that never takes anything away from the film, but rather allows them to try things you wouldn’t see in other films. Much like Sinners innovated with the higher echelons of the film technology available to them to create something great, 28 Years Later does it by pushing the layman’s devices to the max to get something so evocative.

Tonesetter

With its experimental nature, it would have been very easy to waver in the tone so much that you lose the plot a little. However, the tight editing and discipline in ensuring that the right balance was struck allows different tones to coexist without taking away from any of the other aspects. 

The film begins with a sequence from the day of the outbreak, but it doesn’t really pay off in this film with only a hint at one point of where it might lead. There is a comedic relief-type character who is a Swedish soldier that accidentally came ashore. He allowed for a contrast between the current-day modern rest of the world compared to the now primitive society that can exist in Britain. He allowed for moments of levity without ever fully taking away the otherwise serious tone of Spike’s journey. 

The tone of the main story is one of desperation and will with an undercurrent of dread. Of course the zombies play into that, but even the human story carries that as you feel like things surely can’t end well, but Spike’s belief in what he’s doing strings you along regardless in the hopes that perhaps he is right.

Don’t get me wrong though, there are also some brutal kills on the zombies and scenes where a zombie just eviscerates some people – including a gnarly one where a whole spine is ripped out of a body. So, yes there’s some sadness in the movie, but there’s some absolutely metal stuff too. And somehow it all works cohesively.

This film is the first in a trilogy, with the first two films of the trilogy being filmed back to back. The second film will be directed by Nia Dacosta and will come out within 8 months of this film’s release. This movie’s story does however have a complete arc, so the last bit of the film is basically an after-credits type scene (but before the credits) that sets up the next film. The tone shifts drastically with extremely different music cues and vibes from the new characters, but it just sets the scene for what may be ahead after what you experienced in this one.

This was a short review because there’s enough material out there to tell you that this is a great movie. However, there were some things that really struck me. The final note I’ll put here is that there is a decent amount of zombie nudity in the film, notably an intimidating hog that really commands the screen at times. If that’s not a film worth experiencing, I don’t know what to tell you.