Review: "28 Years Later"

Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland hit paydirt when they collaborated on the breakout horror film 28 Days Later back in 2002.  Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a zombie film, though it had all the earmarkings.

The slight difference is that humanoid creatures weren’t dead humans who had been reanimated as they were in George Romero’s classic zombie film Night of the Living Dead (1968).

In Boyle’s film, they were humans who had been infected by a horrible virus that turned them into flesh eating monsters.  Unlike Romero’s slow, stumbling zombies, the infected creatures in Boyle’s nightmarish world move with lightning speed and energy.  That, in itself, made them substantially more menacing.

It was a plot twist that also made its way into the very frightening World War Z, starring Brad Pitt, back in 2013.  In that movie, they were fast and they were many, at times moving like a massive wave of army ants.  It took the zombie concept to the next level.

Boyle and Garland were the architects of this new breed of flesh-eating predators.  28 Days Later was cleverly followed by 28 Weeks Later in 2007 picking up the story after the original ended.  Audiences loved it and wanted more.

I was amused when I first saw the trailers for 28 Years Later.  It was a great concept to pick the story up, once again, in the aftermath of the previous movie.  Boyle and Garland were back.  The prayers of the franchise’s fans were answered.

In the movie, a small group of survivors are living on a small island, isolated from the rest of the world.  The community includes a young couple and their young teenage son, Spike (Alfie Williams).  The dad, one day, decides to take Spike on a dangerous coming of age mission to the mainland known to be occupied by the infected humans, let’s just call them zombies.  They will only be armed with primitive bows and arrows.  The mom objects, but is ill in bed, unable to stop them.

Things do not go well.  The father and son encounter disgusting, rotting, worm-eating zombies who must be shot in a very specific way in order to be put down (Romero’s zombies famously had to be shot in the head).  After being overwhelmed by a small band of blood thirsty zombies, they retreat back to the island, pursued by a powerful lone male who appears to more highly evolved than his peers or predecessors.  The discovery is disturbing. 

Spike’s love for his sickly mom results in his questionable decision to take her back to the mainland in pursuit of a reclusive doctor (Ralph Feinnes) who was a long-lost member of the community. Once again, it’s a dangerous, scary journey.

It would be unfair to reveal what happens when Spike and his mom finally meet the doctor.  All that might be said is that it is a plot twist that audiences probably won’t expect.  It shifts the story from standard zombie action fare to a soul-searching exploration of life, love and mortality.  It’s emotional and heartbreaking. 

Granted, there is plenty of shocking zombie action to satisfy the most die-hard fans.  New plot elements include the fact that the zombies are largely naked.  Logically, their clothes would have disintegrated over time.  It’s a bit shocking, but one may recall that Romero even included a naked female zombie in his 1968 black and white masterpiece (also shocking at the time, along with all the graphic gore, and groundbreaking choice of a black actor as the movie’s leading man). 

Zombie movies not only shock us, but they also hold a mirror up to society and occasionally reflect some ugly truths about ourselves.  In the hands of a talented director like Danny Boyle, movies like 28 Years Later do all that.  It’s an ambitious project that pushes in new directions technically and thematically, defying expectations.

Luckily, we won’t have to wait quite so long for a follow-up.  28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is in post-production and is scheduled for release early next year.