28 Years Later: breathing life into the undead

The latest film in the series is a haunting spectacle of family and loss.

Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland’s long awaited sequel is one of the most surprisingly moving films of the year so far, delving into a deeply human story amid the post-apocalyptic backdrop of Britain.

Over 20 years after the duo reinvigorated the apocalyptic story with 28 Days Later, Boyle and Garland have breathed some life into the heavily saturated zombie genre through 28 Years Later. After largely not being involved with the sequel 28 Weeks Later, Boyle’s direction of the latest instalment is daring and bold - something which is reinforced to the audience from the very first scene of the film. As a group of terrified Scottish children huddle in front of a TV, where familiar childhood favourites The Teletubbies dance in front of Teletubby Hill, tell-tale commotion indicates that all is not well. Screams are interspersed with shouting and smashing before an eerie quiet falls across the household, with one of the young boys getting up to press his ear against the living room door. A pair of twitching and bloodthirsty infected then crash into the living room, their eyes bloodshot as they descend upon their young victims. The brutal tone of the film is set immediately, leaving a sense of lingering dread as the shot cuts away from the children to 28 years after the outbreak. After the rage virus was eradicated in Europe, Britain was placed under an unconditional quarantine and the remains of civilisation fell away. It is here where Boyle places the focus upon a self-contained community of survivors based in Lindisfarne, an island in Northumberland, which is connected to the mainland via a fortified tidal causeway. Among the residents are 12-year-old Spike, played by the exceptional Alfie Williams, his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his mother Isla (Jodie Comer), who is suffering from an unexplained illness.

After deciding that his son is ready to hunt the infected, Jamie takes Spike to the mainland in one of the community’s traditional rites of passage. It is here where it becomes apparent that the film is not going to be a straightforward horror flick, in fact it is a coming-of-age film which depicts the loss of Spike’s childhood innocence. His exclamation of “it’s so big” when he tells his dad that he’s never been to a place where he could not see the sea is starkly contrasted with the decaying landscape that has been reclaimed by nature and the infected. 28 Years Later becomes a sprawling narrative of how Spike relates to the outside world through his parents. With his father Jaimie, Spike must confront death as they hunt the infected for sport. In contrast, Spike desperately seeks out the help of Dr Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) so that he can help his increasingly ill mother and find her a new lease of life. Much like Spike, the audience feels as if they are taking the first step into the wilderness and are confronted with both the brutal reality of death and possibility for life in the infected landscape.

The film is filled with striking cinematography, creating visuals which are both horrific and visceral. The use of quick cuts to gore and the infected contrast with the beautiful representation of the North East in various wide shots. Cinematographer Anthony Dodd Mantle uses this contrast to aid the tension being built in the narrative. For example, a shot of the ‘alpha’ infected standing on the horizon as the sun sets is contrasted with imagery of war and separate shots of the infected feasting on a deer carcass. All of this serves to show the expanded world that the film is set within, though ultimately reinforcing that it is in fact an oppressive nightmare for the characters.

Interestingly, 28 Years Later also depicts a dystopian setting which is inherently related to modern fantasies about returning to the ‘good old days’. Boyle demonstrates how the Lindisfarne community has survived without electricity and modern medicine for three decades since the outbreak. There is a reliance on basic agriculture and the survivors have formed their own norms and values, highlighting the regression of society and a return to tradition. Footage of war and archive clips of the archers of Agincourt in Laurence Olivier’s Henry V are interspersed with the depiction of life in the village, with the film ultimately questioning whether the ‘simplicity’ of the past really translates into the fantasy of it that so many yearn for. In particular, the use of Taylor Holmes’ reading of Rudyard Kiplying’s poem ‘Boots’ is one of the most effective parts of the film. Its inclusion stresses the cultural regression that the survivors are experiencing, emphasising the psychological impact and trauma of being isolated as another consequence of the rage virus. It is this which reinforces the almost mythical tone of 28 Years Later, contrasting it with the gritty realism depicted in 28 Days Later. Through this, Boyle curates an almost soulful aspect to the film and explores a post-technological Britain which has become rooted in rural traditionalism.

28 Years Later is both a film that audiences will and will not expect - it is surprisingly tender in its exploration of family and draws upon folkloric horror to really unsettle its viewers. It also had an ending which has polarised audiences, but it is ultimately one which connects the present to the past and promises to further delve into the nature of family and community in future instalments.