28 Years Later is the Best of the Series!
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July 24th, 2025
28 Years Later has been out for a while, and it feels a little satisfying to finally be able to write that. When I was in school, the follow-up to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later only existed as fan-made posters and what-if discussions among horror fans. After years of development hell that resulted in script revisions and a title change, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have finally reunited to take us on another journey to plague-ridden Britain. I was finally able to catch a showing of it with two of my friends last weekend, and I managed to go into it fairly blind since I only saw the first teaser trailer when it released months ago. I can't speak for everyone, but in my opinion, this is probably the best installment in the series so far!
I think what I appreciated most about Years is that it didn't take the easy way out when it came to its story. 28 Weeks Later showed the Rage virus spreading to Europe, and because of that, this film could have easily been nothing but a mindless action romp that offered up lots of zombie violence with not much substance behind it. In a change of pace, this film reduces the scope of its story, constraining its setting back to mainland Britain and a nearby island after the virus was pushed back and quarantined. Instead of being another straightforward horror story, this movie is a coming-of-age tale about a boy who ventures into the mainland in search of a cure for his ailing mother. The post-apocalyptic setting and bloodthirsty zombies are definitely present, but they often take a backseat to the very human and emotional story at hand. Alfie Williams plays the lead character of Spike, and he's a fantastic actor for someone his age. He has to show a lot of tough emotions throughout the movie - be it anger, shock, disappointment, disgust, or sorrow. In a story that at its core is about the loss of innocence and growing up in a ruined world, he perfectly portrays just how mentally and emotionally damaging these events would be on a child. After two films that mainly followed adult characters in the outset of a disaster, changing the perspective to a young person born into a long-developed apocalypse results in the most emotionally complex storyline of the series. It's very refreshing to have a zombie film that sometimes makes you forget that it has zombies in it because of how gripping the human drama is.
Speaking of zombies, this film plays around with its undead fiends in a lot of unique ways. The zombies in this series have always been notable because they were the first of their kind to be shown as fast-moving infected humans rather than reanimated dead corpses. Since they're technically still alive, they've evolved over the course of the 28-year time gap between the initial outbreak and this film. Being quarantined entirely to Britain, they've evolved into a sort of invasive animal species that are now just a part of this large ecosystem. They have elements of a social structure and often attack in packs, complete with Alpha zombies that have increased size, strength and speed due to the virus acting as a type of steroid. One of the most memorable forms are these fat zombies that crawl on forest floors and eat worms out of the ground, with caked-on layers of dirt and grime that makes them look like they pulled themselves up out of a bog. In a genre that has been over-saturated for years now, an original approach like this is hard to come by, and a couple of revelations that I won't spoil here open the series up to some opportunities that haven't been explored in zombie films before.
I also have to give some props to the cinematography of this thing. Before going in, I had read that a bulk of it was shot on iPhones to mimic the camcorder style of the original film, and I was a little bit skeptical of how that would look on a big screen. That skepticism was proven wrong by just how many gorgeous landscape shots are in this thing. Whether it's a sunset, beautiful fields of yellow flowers or the lush green hillsides, the movie is bursting with color, and the nature-heavy setting gives the animalistic zombies plenty of places to hide before ambushing their prey. Shooting with iPhones and other handheld cameras also adds an up-close and personal feeling to some of the action scenes, and if you're a fan of the quick-cut and frantic action of the first two films, you'll definitely get your fix of it here as well. It's a little crazy to think that phones have developed to the point where they can produce images that are better than most blockbuster films. I can't help but think about the other types of films that will eventually be made as this technology develops. As long as talented people remain behind the camera, I think the potential is pretty great.
28 Years Later exceeded any expectations that I had going in. It takes the elements that made the original film so unique and refines them to create the most compelling story and characters that the series has to offer. Apparently the filmmakers were so confident in this new vision that they've already produced an upcoming sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, set for release next year. I'm not sure if further sequels are really necessary, but if they bring the same level of care to them as they did with this film, I think we're in pretty good hands.