28 Years Later

Rating:

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.

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.

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

It begins with a crowd of kids watching Teletubbies, who I must say always seemed a bit creepy to me, not that Tinky Winky and co deserve the shrieking dissonance of what comes next, as a gang of the ‘infected’ burst in.

Unlike Covid, this virus turns its victims into zombie-like creatures, sending them mad with hunger and murderous rage.

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‘Terrifying’ 28 Years Later receives positive reviews from critics

We are then whisked forward 28 years to Holy Island off the coast of Northumberland, where 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) lives with his macho father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor Johnson), and terribly sick and bedridden mother, Isla (Jodie Comer).

The mainland, across the causeway, is rife with the disease, but this place is still free of it. 

Although it’s the near future, the small community on the island has been plunged back into a medieval way of life; Spike doesn’t recognise an iPhone or a frisbee.

Although Spike is not really old enough, Jamie is certain the boy is ready to experience his first kill.

So, equipped with bows and arrows, father and son cross to the mainland where, scavenging and slaughtering, the infected roam.

Boyle choreographs this perilous mission superbly, ingeniously splicing it with eclectic clips of old newsreel footage and long-ago movies, such as Laurence Olivier as Henry V leading his archers into battle at Agincourt.

It begins with a crowd of kids watching Teletubbies, who I must say always seemed a bit creepy to me, not that Tinky Winky and co deserve the shrieking dissonance of what comes next, as a gang of the ‘infected’ burst in

Unlike Covid, this virus turns its victims into zombie-like creatures, sending them mad with hunger and murderous rage

We are then whisked forward 28 years to Holy Island off the coast of Northumberland, where 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) lives with his macho father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor Johnson), and terribly sick and bedridden mother, Isla (Jodie Comer)

Arrows in those days were meant for the French. Now the enemy is within.

All this will be too gruesome and scary for some, but it is propulsive, edge-of-the-seatstory-telling at its finest, and only gets more gripping when Spike later returns to the mainland with his ailing mum, searching for the eccentric doctor (Ralph Fiennes) he has heard about, who might have the right medicine for her.

Boyle is wonderfully served by his cast. Taylor-Johnson, Comer and Fiennes are all marvellous, as, briefly at the end, setting up the next film, is Jack O’Connell.

But if anyone steals the show it’s young Williams, a feature-film newcomer not outplayed for one second by his illustrious elders.