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Daily Mail
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Story behind 28 Years Later's terrifying 'Boots' poem: How 110-year-old recording of Rudyard Kipling verses that scared viewers is used in US military training
When the first trailer for 28 Years Later was released last year, fans were immediately struck by the theme of sheer terror that ran through it. And part of what made it so scary was its use of a 1915 recording of one of Rudyard Kipling's lesser-known poems. The rendition of Boots by American actor Taylor Holmes sends a chill down the spine of anyone who listens to it - a fact that explains why it has featured for decades in the US Navy's training programme. Last week, it received more exposure with the release of Danny Boyle 's 28 Years Later. It reveals what has become of Britain nearly three decades on from the outbreak of the 'Rage Virus' first seen in 2002 film 28 Days Later. Holmes' Boots recording is played at the start of the film, when Jamie and his son Spike - played by Arron Taylor-Johnson and Alfie Williams - arrive on mainland Britain after leaving the sanctuary of the virus-free island of Lindisfarne. Reflecting the repetitive actions and thoughts of a British soldier marching in South Africa during the Boer War, Kipling's poem was published in 1903 - the year after the conflict had ended. It builds from a calm, monotonous repetition of 'boot, boot, boot, boot', to a crescendo of screaming. The final verses include a plea to 'keep from goin' lunatic' and the poem ends with the words: 'There's no discharge in the war!' In full: Rudyard Kipling's poem 'Boots' We're foot—slog—slog—slog—sloggin' over Africa Foot—foot—foot—foot—sloggin' over Africa -- (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again!) There's no discharge in the war! Seven—six—eleven—five—nine-an'-twenty mile to-day Four—eleven—seventeen—thirty-two the day before -- (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again!) There's no discharge in the war! Don't—don't—don't—don't—look at what's in front of you. (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again); Men—men—men—men—men go mad with watchin' em, An' there's no discharge in the war! Count—count—count—count—the bullets in the bandoliers. If—your—eyes—drop—they will get atop o' you! (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again) -- There's no discharge in the war! We—can—stick—out—'unger, thirst, an' weariness, But—not—not—not—not the chronic sight of 'em, Boot—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again, An' there's no discharge in the war! 'Taint—so—bad—by—day because o' company, But night—brings—long—strings—o' forty thousand million Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again. There's no discharge in the war! I—'ave—marched—six—weeks in 'Ell an' certify It—is—not—fire—devils, dark, or anything, But boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again, An' there's no discharge in the war! Try—try—try—try—to think o' something different Oh—my—God—keep—me from goin' lunatic! (Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up an' down again!) There's no discharge in the war! When Kipling wrote the poem, the loss of more than 20,000 British troops was still very fresh in the memory. The poem's precise metre - the first four words of each line are read at a rate of two per second - matched the time to which soldiers marched. American actor Holmes, who died in 1959, appeared in more than 100 Broadway plays. His delivery in the 1915 recording begins relatively measured, but then ramps up to wild, terrifying abandon. For decades, it has been used in the US Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) course. Recruits are subjected to it as part of efforts to put them under pressure. Former naval aviator Ward Carroll previously said: 'Anyone who has ever attended the US Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school will never forget the poem.' Holmes' rendition was also used last year in the marketing campaign for video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Fellow British poet T.S. Eliot chose to include Boots in his 1941 collection A Choice of Kipling's Verse. For every year from an initial holiday in 1898, Kipling visited South Africa. The author wrote several poems to support the British cause in the Boer War. Britain won the conflict but more than 20,000 British troops were killed. Kipling's most famous works include the Jungle Book and his Just So stories. His 1910 poem If— also remains hugely well-known. The author died in 1936 aged 70. He was left bereft after his son Jack was killed in the First World War. The first trailer for 28 Years Later was released last December. It sparked a flurry of publicity in large part because of the appearance of what appeared to be a zombified Cillian Murphy, who starred as lead character Jim in 28 Days Later. However, it later emerged that the figure was not Murphy but art dealer Angus Neill, who was given a part as an extra by Boyle after being talent-spotted. Murphy, 49, is though an executive producer on the new film and is set to star in upcoming sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. The Mail's Brian Viner gave the new film five stars in his review. He wrote: 'With the terrifying and electrifying 28 Years Later, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland have delivered the best post-apocalyptic survivalist horror-thriller film I have ever seen. 'Which sounds like limited praise, yet it's a much more crowded field than you might think. 'Boyle also made the 2002 film 28 Days Later, setting up the story (written by Garland) of a terrible virus rampaging through Britain, which in those days was more the stuff of science-fiction than it seems now. British troops seen aboard Cunard liner SS Catalonia as they arrive in South Africa during the Boer War, 1899 'There was a sequel, 28 Weeks Later (2007), but that had a different director and writer. 'Now, Boyle and Garland have reunited to mighty effect. 'There's no need to have seen the first two films – this one stands alone.' Boyle's original film famously showed Murphy's character walking through a deserted London after waking up from a coma in hospital. The director opened up earlier this month about how the scenes were shot. Admitting the crew did not have the money to be able to afford to formally close the road, he said that he instead enlisted his daughter to help. He told The Times: 'We didn't have the money to close the bridge, but had a plan to be there at 4am. 'The police can't ask the traffic to stop, but they will allow you to ask drivers. 'So we hired a lot of girls, including my own daughter, who was 18. 'Anybody driving at that time is a bloke, so we had the girls lean in, saying, "Do you mind?" And it worked fine.'
Telegraph
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
28 Years Later, review: A terrifying vision of Britain turning in on itself
Few places in Britain scream zombie apocalypse less than the Northumbrian coast, which makes it the perfect setting for Danny Boyle 's new film. This transfixingly nasty, shrewdly postponed sequel to 2002's 28 Days Later finds a knot of survivors ensconced on the island of Lindisfarne where the otherwise endemic Rage virus has yet to reach. The menfolk work with their hands, the children sing hymns at school, and in the evenings, bitter is swilled by the tankard, while an accordion leads the revellers in roaring song. This little heaven built in hell's despair is separated from the ghoul-infested mainland by a gated tidal causeway which only the untainted few are permitted to cross. You might say its inhabitants have taken back control – but then so has virus-free Europe, which has the entire UK under a militarily enforced lockdown of the damned. The original 28 Days Later – written, like this one, with a beady sociological eye by Alex Garland – noted the civil unrest that had started to fester as the optimism of the early Blair years began to fade. This follow-up doesn't re-take the temperature of British society one generation on so much as vivisect its twitching remains. Call it Disemb-owell and Pressburger: an unholy hybrid of A Canterbury Tale and Cannibal Holocaust which Boyle was perhaps uniquely placed to pull off, and which stands as his finest film since 2008's Slumdog Millionaire. It isn't 'about' Brexit or Covid or anything else so crudely specific: rather, it's a phantasmagorical vision of a deeply familiar, vulnerable, beautiful nation that has become intent on simultaneously turning in on and against itself. Its plot centres on a 12-year-old lad called Spike (Alfie Williams, a real find) who illicitly leaves his island haven to search the mainland for a much-whispered-about doctor (Ralph Fiennes) who might be able to help his mother Isla (Jodie Comer) overcome an unknown disease. Spike's father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a seasoned stalker of the infected, among whom muscular 'alphas' have begun to emerge. (Presumably because fabric rips and rots, one point of difference with the first film and its now canonically sidelined original successor, 2007's 28 Weeks Later, is that the zombies here are obviously nude; sometimes pendulously so.) Early on in the film, Taylor-Johnson is hungry to induct his son into the hunting rite, and their first joint expedition proves as heart-in-throat for the audience as it does arrow-in-throat for most of their targets. The precise moments of impact are captured by cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle with a sickening, time-freezing jerk, as if the camera operator from The Matrix has just had his neck snapped. Mantle shot much of the film on (augmented) iPhone cameras, which give the regularly outrageous action a terrifyingly ordinary texture like Facebook photos from a walking holiday in Alnmouth. Garland employs a strain of peculiarly British pulp humour – very 2000 AD, very Warhammer 40,000 – to undercut the ambient dread. And flashes of Arthurian fantasias and wartime newsreel footage (as well as a pointed double cameo for the now-felled Sycamore Gap tree) serve as regular nudges in the ribs as he and Boyle toy with the notion of a 21st century British national myth. Perhaps more than any of the above, though, it's Fiennes's gently patrician, RP-accented doctor – whose bedside manner is impeccable even when stripped to the waist and slathered in iodine – which gives 28 Years Later its lingering, Kiplingian ache. A brief prologue and epilogue suggest that next January's sequel, titled The Bone Temple and directed by The Marvels' Nia DaCosta, will stir Scottish Presbyterianism into the mix. What British end of the world worth its salt would be without it? 15 cert, 115 mins. In cinemas from June 20
Daily Mail
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
'Terrifying' 28 Years Later receives positive reviews from critics with Ralph Fiennes' performance dubbed 'scene-stealing'
Critics have at last weighed in on Alex Garland and Danny Boyle 's new zombie horror movie 28 Years Later ahead of its release in UK cinemas on Friday, 20 June. A follow-up to the 'great' 2002 film 28 Days Later, Boyle and Garland assembled a star-studded cast including Harry Potter star Ralph Fiennes, 62, and fellow Brit Aaron Taylor-Johnson, for their latest endeavour. Two decades on from the original which saw a deadly virus plague London, the new movie finds a group of survivors living on the secluded island of Lindisfarne, where the virus is yet to reach. Boyle and Garland's new project has received largely positive, if sometimes mixed, reviews from critics following early screenings. Rotten Tomatoes have handed the movie an impressive 94 percent critic approval rating after rounding up reviews from more than 91 film reviewers. Robbie Collin in The Telegraph also handed 28 Years Later a rave review, with the critic handing the 'terrifying' horror movie five stars out of five. 'Garland employs a strain of peculiarly British pulp humour - very 2000 AD, very Warhammer 40,000 - to undercut the ambient dread,' Collin wrote. 'And flashes of Arthurian fantasias and wartime newsreel footage (as well as a pointed double cameo for the now-felled Sycamore Gap tree_ serve as regularly nudges in the ribs as he and Boyle ty with the notion of a 21st century British national myth.' The film too received five stars from The Times critic Ed Potton, who hailed Jodie Comer's 'impressive as always' performance. The journalist wrote: 'Is this the most beautiful zombie film of them all? It's hard to think of another that combines such wonder and outlandishness with the regulation flesh-rending, brain-munching and vicious disembowelment.' The BBC 's Caryn James handed the highly-anticipated film four stars out of five as she dubbed Ralph Fiennes's performance 'scene-stealing'. '28 Years Later is part zombie-apocalypse horror, part medieval world buildling, part sentimental family story and - most effectively - part Heart of Darkness in its journey towards a madman in the woods. 'It glows with Boyle's visual flair, Garland's ambitious screenplay and a towering performance from Ralph Fiennes, whose character enters halfway through the film and unexpectedly becomes its fraught sole'. Reviews in The Guardian and The Independent were slightly more critical however, with journalists scoring 28 Years Later with three stars. Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian: 'A little awkwardly, the film has to get us on to the mainland for some badass action sequences with real shooting weaponry - and then we have the two 'alpha' cameos that it would be unsporting to reveal, but which cause the film to shunt between deep sadness and a bizarre, implausible (though certainly startling) graphic-novel strangeness.' While Clarisse Loughley wrote in The Independent: 'Even if 28 Years Later feels like being repeatedly bonked on the head by the metaphor hammer, Boyle's still a largely compelling filmmaker, and the film separates itself from the first instalment by offering something distinctly more sentimental and mythic than before.' 28 Years Later has become the best horror ticket pre-seller of 2025, with the film expected to gross around $30million in its first weekend. 28 YEARS LATER - THE REVIEWS The Guardian (THREE STARS) Rating: This tonally uncertain revival mixes folk horror and little-England satire as an island lad seeks help for his sick mum on the undead-infested mainland. The Independent (THREE STARS) Rating: Danny Boyle and Alex Garland return to the zombie-infested world of 28 Days Later with interested, if mixed, results. BBC Culture (FOUR STARS) Rating: Alex Garland and Danny Boyle have reunited for a follow-up to their 2002 classic. It has visual flair, terrifying adversaries and scene-stealing performance from Ralph Fiennes. The Telegraph (FIVE STARS) Rating: This transfixingly nasty zombie horror sequel, starring Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes, is Danny Boyle's best film in 15 years The Times (FIVE STARS) Rating:
Telegraph
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
28 Years Later: A terrifying vision of Britain turning in on itself
Few places in Britain scream zombie apocalypse less than the Northumbrian coast, which makes it the perfect setting for Danny Boyle 's new film. This transfixingly nasty, shrewdly postponed sequel to 2002's 28 Days Later finds a knot of survivors ensconced on the island of Lindisfarne where the otherwise endemic Rage virus has yet to reach. The menfolk work with their hands, the children sing hymns at school, and in the evenings, bitter is swilled by the tankard, while an accordion leads the revellers in roaring song. This little heaven built in hell's despair is separated from the ghoul-infested mainland by a gated tidal causeway which only the untainted few are permitted to cross. You might say its inhabitants have taken back control – but then so has virus-free Europe, which has the entire UK under a militarily enforced lockdown of the damned. The original 28 Days Later – written, like this one, with a beady sociological eye by Alex Garland – noted the civil unrest that had started to fester as the optimism of the early Blair years began to fade. This follow-up doesn't re-take the temperature of British society one generation on so much as vivisect its twitching remains. Call it Disemb-owell and Pressburger: an unholy hybrid of A Canterbury Tale and Cannibal Holocaust which Boyle was perhaps uniquely placed to pull off, and which stands as his finest film since 2008's Slumdog Millionaire. It isn't 'about' Brexit or Covid or anything else so crudely specific: rather, it's a phantasmagorical vision of a deeply familiar, vulnerable, beautiful nation that has become intent on simultaneously turning in on and against itself. Its plot centres on a 12-year-old lad called Spike (Alfie Williams, a real find) who illicitly leaves his island haven to search the mainland for a much-whispered-about doctor (Ralph Fiennes) who might be able to help his mother Isla (Jodie Comer) overcome an unknown disease. Spike's father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is a seasoned stalker of the infected, among whom muscular 'alphas' have begun to emerge. (Presumably because fabric rips and rots, one point of difference with the first film and its now canonically sidelined original successor, 2007's 28 Weeks Later, is that the zombies here are obviously nude; sometimes pendulously so.) Early on in the film, Taylor-Johnson is hungry to induct his son into the hunting rite, and their first joint expedition proves as heart-in-throat for the audience as it does arrow-in-throat for most of their targets. The precise moments of impact are captured by cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle with a sickening, time-freezing jerk, as if the camera operator from The Matrix has just had his neck snapped. Mantle shot much of the film on (augmented) iPhone cameras, which give the regularly outrageous action a terrifyingly ordinary texture like Facebook photos from a walking holiday in Alnmouth. Garland employs a strain of peculiarly British pulp humour – very 2000 AD, very Warhammer 40,000 – to undercut the ambient dread. And flashes of Arthurian fantasias and wartime newsreel footage (as well as a pointed double cameo for the now-felled Sycamore Gap tree) serve as regular nudges in the ribs as he and Boyle toy with the notion of a 21st century British national myth. Perhaps more than any of the above, though, it's Fiennes's gently patrician, RP-accented doctor – whose bedside manner is impeccable even when stripped to the waist and slathered in iodine – which gives 28 Years Later its lingering, Kiplingian ache. A brief prologue and epilogue suggest that next January's sequel, titled The Bone Temple and directed by The Marvels' Nia DaCosta, will stir Scottish Presbyterianism into the mix. What British end of the world worth its salt would be without it? 15 cert, 115 mins. In cinemas from June 20
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Aaron Taylor-Johnson leads '28 Years Later.' Here's where you might recognize the rest of the cast from.
"28 Years Later" is the long-gestating sequel to Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later." Aaron Taylor-Johnson leads the film alongside newcomer Alfie Williams. Here's where you might recognize the rest of the cast from. "28 Years Later" brings the terrifying Rage virus back to the big screen as director Danny Boyle returns to examine postapocalyptic Britain once more. It's the third film in the franchise following 2007's "28 Weeks Later" and is released on June 20. It picks up decades after the initial outbreak turned the British population into bloodthirsty, sprinting zombies. "28 Years Later" revolves around the inhabitants of Lindisfarne, an island off the coast of Northumberland. The tide cuts Lindisfarne off from the mainland most of the time, keeping it safe from the infected. Things get bloody when Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is tasked with taking his son Spike, played by newcomer Alfie Williams, to the world beyond the island. While Boyle has recruited some talented actors for "28 Years Later," Cillian Murphy won't return to the franchise just yet. Here's where you've seen the main cast before. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is known for movies like "Kick-Ass," "Kraven the Hunter," and "Nosferatu." Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Jamie in "28 Years Later," and he takes his son onto the mainland, where they come face-to-face with the infected. The actor previously starred in the "Kick-Ass" movies, and played superhero Quicksilver in "Avengers: Age of Ultron." He also appeared in the 2014 "Godzilla" reboot and had a supporting role in Christopher Nolan's "Tenet." Last year he led Sony's "Kraven the Hunter" movie as the titular Marvel villain, before getting his first brush with the horror genre in "Nosferatu." Jodie Comer made her name in British dramas like "Doctor Foster" and recently starred in movies like "Free Guy" and "The Bikeriders." Jodie Comer plays Jamie's wife Isla (and Spike's mother) in "28 Years Later." Comer started her career by starring in buzzy British dramas like "My Mad Fat Diary," "Doctor Foster," and "Killing Eve." She made the jump to Hollywood in the last five years, and worked with Ryan Reynolds on "Free Guy," and starred opposite Ben Affleck and Adam Driver in Ridley Scott's "The Last Duel." In 2023, she played Kathy Bauer in "The Bikeriders" with Austin Butler and Tom Hardy. Ralph Fiennes played Voldemort in "Harry Potter" and led 2024's "Conclave." Ralph Fiennes plays the mysterious Dr Ian Kelson in "28 Years later." The actor is one of the most famous British stars of the past 30 years, following Oscar-nominated performances in films such as "Schindler's List," "The English Patient," and 2024's "Conclave." He may be best known for playing Voldemort in the "Harry Potter" franchise, and the new M in Daniel Craig's "James Bond" movies. Jack O'Connell started out in "Skins" but recently appeared in "Back to Black" and "Sinners." Jack O'Connell plays Sir Jimmy Crystal in "28 Years Later," but the details of his role are being kept secret and out of the film's marketing material. He rose to fame thanks to his role as Cook in the teen drama, "Skins," before starring in critically acclaimed British movies and shows including "This Is England," "Eden Lake," and "'71." He later appeared in Netflix's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" opposite Emma Corrin, and played Amy Winehouse's husband, Blake Felder-Civil, in "Back to Black." In 2024, O'Connell portrayed the vampire villain, Remmick, in Ryan Coogler's "Sinners." Erin Kellyman starred in "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier" before "28 Years Later." Erin Kellyman plays Jimmy Ink in "28 Years Later," but her role has been kept out of the marketing for the film. She also got her start in British TV thanks to shows like "Raised By Wolves" and the "Les Misérables" miniseries. She started to get more attention after her brief role as rebel pirate Enfys Nest in "Solo: A Star Wars Story," which led to her playing villain Karli Morgenthau in the Marvel series, "The Falcon and The Winter Soldier." She continued her TV streak in 2022 by starring in Netflix's "Top Boy" and Disney's "Willow." Read the original article on Business Insider
