Glory and gory be! 28 Years Later is
After great early promise in 2002 with 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle's zombie franchise looked like it was going to reanimate a moribund movie cliché but it all stumbled and shuddered to an ignoble halt with the delayed and frankly awful follow-up 28 Weeks Later.
Now prefaced by much "is he/isn't he?" speculation about whether Cillian Murphy would reprise his role from the first movie (he isn't), Boyle is back at his maverick best with this deeply creepy return to form which reignites the twitchy paranoia and dread of the original.
And glory and gory be - writer Alex Garland, and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle also return, as does Murphy but as executive producer and not having taken his Oppenheimer diet to extremes to play a member of the emaciated massive.
They have conjured up a fever dream of a film that somehow looks like a cross pollination of Mike Leigh realism, and the sickening surrealism of Straw Dogs and The Wicker Man.
We are now on Holy Island off the northeast coast of England, 28 years after the accidental release of a highly contagious virus which caused the breakdown of society and turned infected folk into slavering maniacs with The Rage.
Perfidious Albion is now in a state of not so splendid isolation and in quarantine patrolled by European vessels. Garland and Boyle do not hold back on gleeful commentary about the contemporary UK's perilous state, cut-off politically and culturally from the continent and muddling along with a sense of misplaced exceptionalism and proud independence.
This post-apocalyptic vision of ye olde merrie future England comes shot through with the look and feel of the fabled lost 1950s Britain beloved of Reform voters and Brexiteers. So political allegory and gore is the order of the day; In the island's village hall a tapestry of a young Queen Elizabeth II in her coronation year takes pride of place and Boyle uses clips from Laurence Olivier's Henry V and wartime newsreel footage of the Blitz to underline the fortress Britain atmosphere. Later, we see the flag of St George in flames. Bow and arrows are the weapon of choice; everyone is dressed in ragamuffin chic and the island looks like it's devolved back to medieval England. Or maybe Féile '90.
Wrapped in that grim tableau is a touching family drama concerning 12-year-old Spike (a very impressive Alfie Williams) and his parents, Isla (Jodie Comer - great as usual), who is suffering from a mysterious illness that causes huge trauma and grief for her doting son, and Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a scavenger and survivalist given to flashes of his own type of rage.
We first meet Spike on what will be a big day for him. He is about to be taken across the causeway that connects the island to the still contaminated mainland on his first sortie among the infected; a rite of passage that will test his mettle and see him take his place within the village hierarchy.
Once across the causeway, the action clicks with an unforgiving ferocity and father and son barely make it home after a gripping moonlit dash back across the causeway as the tide goes out.
As we have seen from the first two movies in the series, these zombies are not the shambling husks of B-movie lore but fleet of foot savages who pose a genuine threat. However, Garland and Boyle also introduce two new breeds of zombie - obese, sluggish creatures who forage about on the forest floor and have a nasty talent for creeping up on their prey, and Alphas, muscular pack leaders who take a lot to kill.
When Spike hears about the mysterious Dr Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), an eccentric former GP who has remained uninfected and choses to live on the mainland, he sees him as a salvation for his sick mother and so he spirits her back across to the mainland much to the anger of the island's elders and his stricken father.
Once we are back off the island, the movie takes on a semi-mystical air with impressionistic riddles and symbols and spiritual ceremony surrounding Dr Kelson. He is clearly the Col Kurtz of the piece, a shamanic witch doctor of sorts, who tends to his very own bone orchard and has his own way of dealing with the infected marauders.
The sense of loss is everywhere. There are haunting and very moving glimpses of Anthony Gormley's Angel of the North sculpture rearing starkly from the landscape like the Statue Of Liberty in The Planet of The Apes and a very poignant shot of the now felled tree in the Sycamore Gap at Hadrian's Wall.
A brief appearance by Edvin Ryding as a sardonic Swedish NATO soldier, who has been shipwrecked off the coast, adds another dose of dark humour to a movie which is surprisingly funny as well as disturbing.
Scottish band Young Fathers provide a pumping but abstract soundtrack for what is a multi-layered, poetic and lyrical movie but with plenty of the comic book gore beloved of fans of the franchise. Arrows fly and slice through zombie flesh and that mad dash across the causeway is exhilarating. Full of strange images and taut action scenes, Boyle has said he wanted a sense of "suffocating intensity" to the film and he really does achieve it
The bravado closing sequence, which strangely reminded me of some groovy sixties rock `n' roll flick starring Oliver Reed, includes a crowd-pleasing cameo and sets things up smoothly for the next instalment. If it's as good as this acrid, kerosene-choked thrill ride, we're in for another treat.
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RTÉ News
20 minutes ago
- RTÉ News
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The Journal
2 days ago
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Extra.ie
6 days ago
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More Than Monsters: Danny Boyle on his return to rage and redemption
When 28 Days Later stormed onto screens in 2002, it redefined the horror genre not with gore alone, but with a haunting meditation on what remains when society collapses. Now, over two decades later, Danny Boyle returns with 28 Years Later, a film that expands the scope of his dystopia while digging deeper into the soul of its survivors. Gone are the empty motorways and frantic sprints of the infected, what remains is a quieter terror, one that settles in the cracks of human connection, moral compromise, and fragile hope. Sitting down with ahead of the film's release, the Oscar winning director chatted about the humanity behind the horror and his creative companionship with our very own Cillian Murphy. When 28 Days Later stormed onto screens in 2002, it redefined the horror genre not with gore alone, but with a haunting meditation on what remains when society collapses. Pic: Brian McEvoy Photography For Boyle, horror has never been about spectacle, it's about pressure, what it reveals, what it distorts, and what it leaves behind. His lens lingers not just on violence, but on the choices made in its wake. In 28 Years Later, the rage virus is still present, still deadly, but the true infection now might be something more insidious: despair, disconnection, the erosion of empathy. Through intimate scenes in shattered towns and moments of tentative tenderness between characters, Boyle explores the human instinct to rebuild, even when the world resists. Touching on those brief glimpses of grace, the director began: ' One of the core themes is that the infected are sick. They're not monsters, you know? They're not like robotic monsters or creatures from outer space or something like that. They're us and the infection has completely taken them over,' he began. Now, over two decades later, Danny Boyle returns with 28 Years Later, a film that expands the scope of his dystopia while digging deeper into the soul of its survivors. Gone are the empty motorways and frantic sprints of the infected, what remains is a quieter terror, one that settles in the cracks of human connection, moral compromise, and fragile hope. Pic: Brian McEvoy Photography ' The figure of Kelson(Ralph Fienes), he says that he builds this monument that he's building for infected and non-infected. You know, he doesn't differentiate. Whereas I think Aaron Taylor Johnson, the father of Alfie, does differentiate and says they're not even human. Just kill them.' Boyle briefly touched on one of the stand out moments of the film, where Isla (Jodie Comer) aids one of the infected during childbirth. It's a quietly devastating scene, a moment that momentarily suspends the terror and reminds us, almost unbearably, of what's been lost. ' Obviously, you don't attract Jodi Comer to a bad script,' he laughed. 'I think it was quite personal. Alex was writing about someone that is very close to him who's gone through some of the problems that you have where the mind just begins to come apart a bit really. Boyle briefly touched on one of the stand out moments of the film, where Isla (Jodie Comer) aids one of the infected during child birth. It's a quietly devastating scene, a moment that momentarily suspends the terror and reminds us, almost unbearably, of what's been lost. Pic: Columbia ' That's the humanity right there, and she passes something on to her son, but she's also weirdly passing it on to Alfie who plays the part. 'She's sort of teaching him about an interior world and a humane world, a world of some compassion, and they find that in the midst of all this horror.' One of the most striking evolutions in 28 Years Later isn't just on screen, but behind the camera, where Boyle reunites with longtime collaborator Cillian Murphy in a new capacity. One of the most striking evolutions in 28 Years Later isn't just on screen, but behind the camera, where Boyle reunites with longtime collaborator Cillian Murphy in a new capacity. Pic: Peter Mountain/Dna/20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock Having first worked together when Murphy played the bewildered survivor Jim in 28 Days Later, their creative dynamic now enters a different phase, with Murphy stepping into a producer role. Charting Murphy's transformation from emerging actor to a driving creative force, and exploring how their shared history shaped the tone, rhythm, and emotional core of the new film. ' He acts as a producer on the film, and that liberated us because we didn't have to make a direct and obvious connection with the first film,' Boyle continued. Having first worked together when Murphy played the bewildered survivor Jim in 28 Days Later, their creative dynamic now enters a different phase, with Murphy stepping into a producer role. Pic: Brian McEvoy Photography 'But it is there, you are moving on a journey towards him in the second film, which has been shot for release in January. He appears as a kind of figure at the end of that film, very wonderfully done by Nia DaCosta, the way she reintroduces him. ' And then the third film is meant to be his. So the films will then connect with the first film through Jim, his character. There's something very similar about him and something very different about him as well. So there's lots to look forward to in it.'
