28 Years Later

UK Release Date. 20 June 2025
Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 55 mins
Director. Danny Boyle
Cast. Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O'Connell, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams.
Rating. 70%

Review.

Back in November 2002, Danny Boyle unleashed his post-apocalyptic horror film, 28 Days Later, featuring the Rage virus - a seemingly incurable virus that transforms humans into feral, blood-thirsty, flesh-eating abominations. Boyle famously made use of then-new lightweight digital tech to enable unlicensed guerrilla shooting at dawn in the deserted streets of London. 

In 2007, 28 Weeks Later was released, with the Spanish director, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, replacing Danny Boyle behind the lens. Hampered by a weaker narrative and unfathomable plot decisions, 28 Weeks Later was a pale imitation of the original.

Now, Boyle is back with 28 Years Later - the first instalment in a potential trilogy - which takes a generational, even evolutionary leap into the future from the initial outbreak 28 years previously.

A refuge exists on Holy Island, otherwise known as Lindisfarne, connected to the mainland by a causeway only accessible at low tide. The basic premise of the film centres around 12-year-old, Spike (Alfie Williams, who anchors this film with incredible poise) embarking on his first patrol on the mainland (where the infected still persist) with his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).

The mainland introduces a pervasive sense of inherent danger. When the audience first encounters the infected, it is a heart-pumping, breathlessly tense affair. They, too, have evolved, into different castes and perhaps even their own civilisation.

28 Years Later was partially shot on iPhones, updating 28 Days Later grainy, consumer-grade digital video approach; kills are captured by bullet-time camera rigs, delivered in jarring multi-angle edits. The film’s opening half, in particular, is phenomenal - an electrifying and ferocious exercise in terror, amplified by Young Fathers’ congruous score.  In terms of performances, Jodie Comer is exceptional as Spike’s mother Isla.

The latest iteration is reportedly part of a series of planned films - Nia DaCosta directs 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple set for release next month, with Danny Boyle pencilled in to direct the third instalment in the trilogy. As such, there are obvious narrative bookends to 28 Years Later that exist solely to set up another story. As a result, the final two minutes of 28 Years Later are completely at odds with the film's tone, resulting in one of the most ill-advised and unsatisfactory (and apparently divisive) conclusions to a film in recent years. The incongruous tone is magnified as earlier in the proceedings, Boyle had given us one of the most beautiful and emotive on-screen deaths I can remember.

"There are many kinds of death. Some are better than others. The best are peaceful, where we leave each other in love."