When 28 Days Later debuted in 2002 I was six years old – a little too young to appreciate the tense, psychological pseudo-zombie horror with its sprinting infected vomiting blood and fueled by the Rage Virus. However, as a teenager, I became obsessed with the film and also its less popular sequel 28 Weeks Later – which if you ask me, has the best opening scene of any zombie film ever.
That’s why when I heard director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland were back in 2025 with the third installment of the franchise 28 Years Later, I could barely contain my excitement. This sequel is a far departure from the earlier films, and in my opinion, this is a good thing.
In the film, 28 years have passed since the Rage virus swept the UK and mainland Britain has been quarantined, leaving those outside the island to fend for themselves among the hordes of infected who vary from the usual sprinting zombies made famous in the first films to the swollen bloated infected who drag themselves across the forest floor surviving on worms.
The reveal of these infected is absolutely horrifying – the foley sound effect of these corpse-like creatures sucking down worms will replay in my head for weeks. There’s also another new type of infected – an Alpha. This monstrous zombie is seemingly capable of critical thinking, making him a worthy adversary for the main protagonists – father son duo Jamie and Spike played by Aaron Taylor Johnson and Alfie Williams respectively.
When Jamie takes Spike from the relative safety of their heavily defended village on Lindisfarne, across the tidal causeway and into the mainland, Spike receives a crash course on zombie hunting and foraging.
Like the previous two films, 28 Years Later is just as much about family and society as it is zombies. When Spike discovers the existence of a mysterious doctor on the mainland, played by Ralph Fiennes, it kickstarts a hero’s journey like no other.
Desperate to find a cure for his mother Isla, played by a deliciously delirious Jodie Comer, Spike escapes the safety of the village and the influence of his father and takes his hallucinating mother across the dangerous forestscape, relentlessly pursued by all three kinds of infected.
The emotional connection between Spike and Isla was concealed in the promotional material for the film, so it comes out of left field but adds another dimension of horror to the film.
Spike’s dedication to curing his mother is one of the main plot points in the film, and as it unfurls it adds tension upon tension. In her moments of lucidity, Isla is the perfect mother – but can also be prone to rages, and uncontrolled bleeding much like the infected the pair are fleeing from
The entire film is a rollicking adventure where the tension barely lets up for a minute, culminating in the most bizarre and left field ending I have ever seen. Boyle and Gardener have already filmed the next installment of the series. 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple is set to release in January next year, and I will be seated in the cinema the day it comes out.
All in all, 28 Years Later is a fabulous continuation of the franchise, and is one of those films that leaves you demanding all your friends watch it too, just so you can ask each other ‘what the actual hell was that?’.