28 Years Later (2025)
Directed by Danny Boyle
Twenty-eight years after the Rage virus outbreak, a heavily-defended island survives connected to the mainland by a single causeway. When one of the group leaves the island into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.
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53 films that influenced 28 Years Later
What critics say influenced 28 Years Later
The Walking Dead made zombies a weekly ritual for households across the globe.
Eleven seasons of “The Walking Dead” (plus its spinoffs) have taken place since the last time the UK’s “fast zombies” graced our screens…
If some of these things sound familiar to zombie aficionados—or more simply, those who have seen a few episodes of The Walking Dead—it’s because they are, on the whole, things we’ve all seen before from a genre that has been milked dry.
From The Walking Dead to World War Z, or the classics of George A. Romero…
Even The Walking Dead (2012-2022), a show about the importance of building community, spends most of its time creating conflict via wars with other groups, as well as the much-criticized shock value of constantly killing off characters.
The Walking Dead set the standard, and many other titles refined it, like The Girl with All the Gifts, Kingdom, and Train to Busan.
Neither is the film a nostalgia-infused legacy sequel. No characters return from earlier films. In terms of tone and genre, it does not really match either previous instalment. 28 Days Later (2002) combined the zombie movie with a very British ‘cosy catastrophe’ (its relationship to author John Wyndham sits somewhere between ‘heavy debt’ and ‘blatant plagiarism’). As noted, 28 Weeks Later (2007) adopted more elements of a military thriller: larger in scale, and more muscular in terms of firepower and violence.
A recurrent them in all the 28… Later films have been this sense of a Rubicon.
As cramped and citybound as 28 Days Later and its sequel felt, 28 Years Later is all wide-open vistas and rolling hills.
The title is somewhat misleading as 28 Weeks Later arrived in theaters back in 2007, but why quibble over a few years?
Presumably, the Paris invasion seen at the conclusion of Juan Carles Fesnadillo’s 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later, didn’t amount to much.
Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland followed that up with 28 WEEKS LATER, with the Rage virus morphing and spreading to Europe.
The Last of Us made hordes of infected into prestige TV.
Stories like The Last of Us, Train to Busan, and even The Walking Dead video game.
The peak of this genre, especially in the West, is attributed to The Last of Us, which is already struggling in viewership, as it focuses more on the story, and zombies no longer evoke the same shock.
…numerous imitators riding the renewed zombie wave including THE WALKING DEAD and THE LAST OF US.
One can even note the similarities between Spike’s desperation to save his mother and the personal conflicts in The Last of Us (2023-). However, while the latter gives in to the bleakness of its genre tropes…
(Think more Resident Evil than The Last of Us.)
Plus, prosthetic penises, Predator-like decapitations, Ralph Fiennes’ boney art installation and addressing the Jimmy Savile of it all.
With nods to Predator, Mad Max, the zombie plagues of Romero, and, of course, The Odyssey…
But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of blood to go around (though the biggest kills are blatant references to Predator, which is surprisingly lazy).
…something more akin to an apex Predator.
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Teletubbies dance across a family TV set…
If you already thought Teletubbies was unnerving, wait until you see how Boyle and editor Jon Harris incorporate the children’s show here.
…a group of kids are watching Teletubbies…
…watching harmless, pastel-colored Teletubbies on TV…
Children are killed by zombies while watching Teletubbies…
The film opens with the moments shown in earlier trailers: a group of kids try to watch Teletubbies while everything breaks bad just outside of their door.
…the genre really broke free from the grave in 1968 with George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead.
With nods to Predator, Mad Max, the zombie plagues of Romero, and, of course, The Odyssey…
The manner in which the virus spreads can occur via a bite—a more traditional means used in films since George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968)…
More than even Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, it was responsible for the resurgence of the zombie horror on the big and small screen…
…undead as a symbol of mindless consumerism in Dawn of the Dead…
Plus, an optimistic response to “Dawn of the Dead” (2004).
…the genre had been moribund for some time before 2002, when Boyle’s picture and Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil brought it back from the dead.
Music also accompanies many of the action scenes in a prominent way that bears closer resemblance to a music video than a film (or, at the very least, Paul W. S. Anderson’s Resident Evil franchise).
(Think more Resident Evil than The Last of Us.)
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Train to Busan gave the genre more heart than any film to date.
Stories like The Last of Us, Train to Busan, and even The Walking Dead video game.
The Walking Dead set the standard, and many other titles refined it, like The Girl with All the Gifts, Kingdom, and Train to Busan.
While the director has repeatedly distanced 28 Days Later from the “zombie” label, his exciting new “rage virus” installment is in a league not just with his own earlier film but other genre standouts like Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan.
The film takes a turn toward Apocalypse Now territory, as Spike and Isla venture out to find the mysterious Dr. Kelson…
…played by Ralph Fiennes like a sparking livewire who’s channeling Marlon Brando’s mad colonel (the horror! The horror!) in “Apocalypse Now.”
Blockbuster horror films tend not to evoke Ken Loach’s Kes or the Brando scenes in Apocalypse Now…