28 YEARS LATER Review: Beauty and horror

"Remember you must die—remember you must love."

The duality of the Latin phrases memento mori ("remember you must die") and memento vivere ("remember to live") beats at the bloody, philosophical heart of 28 Years Later, Danny Boyle’s long-awaited and already divisive return to the world he helped redefine over two decades ago.

After kickstarting the modern zombie revival with 2002’s 28 Days Later, Boyle stepped back for 2007’s adrenaline-soaked sequel 28 Weeks Later, serving as executive producer alongside writer Alex Garland. Then—for 18 long years—silence. Until now.

The trailer put it best: DAYS became WEEKS, and WEEKS became… years. And with 28 Years Later, Boyle reclaims the director’s chair, delivering not just a horror film but a haunting meditation on legacy, loss, and the cost of survival.

The film opens with a sickening, tension-soaked flashback to the early days of the Rage Virus in a remote Scottish Highlands community. Children, huddled around an old episode of Teletubbies, try to block out the chaos outside the door. When the inevitable happens—screams, blood, panic—a young boy named Jimmy escapes to a church, where his priest father greets the apocalypse as divine judgment. After blessing Jimmy with a cross necklace, the priest offers himself to the infected in a chilling display of religious fervor.

From here, archival footage fills in the gap: though the virus reached mainland Europe by the end of 28 Weeks Later, it was pushed back and eventually contained within Great Britain and Ireland. The region was quarantined and forgotten—left to rot.

Now, nearly three decades later, we meet 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) and his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) living on the isolated island of Lindisfarne. As part of a coming-of-age ritual, Spike joins his father on a hunting trip to the British mainland—an overgrown, eerily serene landscape where nature has reclaimed the ruins of civilization.

Boyle and Garland’s vision of the post-collapse world is stunning. Wild animals roam free, churches and homes are buried in greenery, and sunlight dapples abandoned towns. The aesthetic recalls our real-life early pandemic imagery, when the world paused and nature crept back into view.

But all is not well. The Rage Virus has mutated. New infected forms have emerged: grotesque, bloated crawlers dubbed “Slow Lows” feed on earthworms and carrion, while towering “Alphas” stalk the land with terrifying command over the starved, emaciated infected.

Boyle captures them in breathtaking contrasts—sun-drenched fields with almost balletic infected movement, then abrupt switches to night-vision horror, bloodied mouths and glowing eyes framed in unholy red.

During their trip, Spike spots a mysterious fire on the horizon and, after a harrowing encounter with an Alpha, learns it belongs to Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a reclusive scientist rumored to hold the key to curing Spike’s ill mother, Isla (Jodie Comer). Spike defies his father and journeys with Isla to find Kelson, a quest that transforms the film from zombie horror into something deeper: a coming-of-age fable, a portrait of grief, and a study in human resilience.

Their journey is perilous and pulse-pounding, but the emotional core is the evolving relationship between Spike and his fading mother. Isla slips in and out of lucidity, often believing herself to be a child again, wistfully remembering walks through the countryside with her own father.

What unfolds at Dr. Kelson’s compound is too painful to spoil—but it shifts the film’s genre once again, leaving behind expectations of horror to deliver something deeply tragic, and deeply human.

Zombie films have changed since 2002—and so have we. In the aftermath of COVID-19, we understand more than ever the psychological weight of isolation, fear, and the desperation to preserve the past. The island commune where Spike lives reflects that desperation: rigid, traditionalist, even sinister in its attempt to freeze time.

Schoolchildren are pre-assigned jobs, trained in archery like medieval squires. Old portraits of Queen Elizabeth II adorn the town hall like sacred relics. In contrast, the mainland is a riot of color and wild possibility—a world reclaimed, not mourned.

Jamie, Spike’s father, puts it best when they pass a line of felled trees: “That’s where you’ll work one day.” His son’s fate has already been written. The past controls the present. But on the mainland, the future—bright, frightening, beautiful—is still unwritten.

When the credits rolled at a packed 7 p.m. screening at Cowley Cinema 8, my first thought was: What the hell was that? The lobby buzzed with debate. Some hated it. Some loved it. Others stood silently, processing.

And that’s exactly the point.

28 Years Later is a film designed to provoke conversation. It's a bold, risky evolution—more The Green Knight than World War Z, more philosophical treatise than crowd-pleasing gorefest. And yet, when the gore arrives, it’s as expertly crafted and viscerally effective as anything Boyle has ever done.

Sony clearly agrees: the sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, is already shot and will be released this January, directed by Nia DaCosta (Candyman, The Marvels). Given the direction Years takes in its final moments, DaCosta is an inspired choice—especially considering her skill at exploring how the past haunts the present.

With 28 Years Later, Boyle and Garland have created not just a horror sequel but a genre-defying exploration of what it means to live, to die, and to change. It’s a film that reminds us to hold on—but not too tightly. The old world is gone. What we do now matters more than ever.

28 Years Later is now playing in theaters.