After twenty-three years, filmmakers Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have returned to the world of their seminal horror sensation 28 Days Later. That original 2002 film, directed by Boyle and written by Garland, seems prescient in a number of striking and unsettling ways upon reflection. For one, it reinvigorated interest in the zombie movie as a viable horror subgenre—a trend that has been capitalized on by everything from Shaun of the Dead to Zombieland to The Walking Dead in the interim. But more crucially, the film’s depiction of a catastrophic disease spreading at a rapid pace and leaving once-crowded metropolitan streets devoid of life feels all the more pointedly acute in a post-COVID era.
So, to see the filmmakers return to the franchise decades later with 28 Years Later was an opportunity loaded with both questions and potential. Blessedly, the results are nothing short of staggering, as Boyle and Garland deliver a film that builds upon the foundations of the original in exciting, invigorating, and jaw-dropping form.
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TOP FIVE THINGS ABOUT “28 YEARS LATER”
5. A More Mature Tale
Alex Garland is a masterful writer who has built a career out of taking high-concept science-fiction frameworks and infusing them with dynamic interpersonal relationships, allowing him to explore deeply philosophical, existential, and theological questions. Simply put, he’s one of the finest science-fiction storytellers working today. From 28 Days Later to Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Devs, Garland has evolved into a more nuanced, mature writer. What he once conveyed with a scream, he now delivers with a whisper—and nowhere is that more apparent than in 28 Years Later.
In tackling the challenge of imagining what the world might look like decades after the outbreak of the Rage Virus that devastated England, Garland constructs a fictional universe that feels cohesive, tactile, and emotionally resonant. The story’s scale is massive—at times mythic and fable-like—but its focus remains tightly centered on the characters of Spike (played by Alfie Williams) and his parents, portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Comer. The result is one of Garland’s strongest scripts to date: packed with visceral horror-action set pieces that not only thrill but also serve as vehicles for exploring deeper ethical dilemmas. At its core, the film is a profound meditation on rage itself—how it has spread throughout society over the years and continues to linger, even in those who believe themselves to be safe, innocent, or above it.
4. Alfie Williams
The cast is uniformly excellent here, with everyone—from Aaron Taylor-Johnson to Jodie Comer to Ralph Fiennes—delivering deeply intricate, emotionally layered performances, all while convincingly portraying characters who are perpetually terrified and running on fumes. But as impressive as the entire ensemble is, the breakout star of the film is unquestionably young Alfie Williams as the twelve-year-old protagonist, Spike.
Cleverly, the film’s marketing has kept the nature of Williams’ role under wraps, and even the first act frames him as one might expect in a story like this: a secondary character, mostly used to convey exposition and help reinforce the film’s central themes. In these early scenes, Williams is excellent—but it’s in the second act, when the film makes a bold and unexpected pivot to center Spike as the true protagonist, that his performance truly shines. Much of the film’s emotional and narrative weight is placed on his shoulders, especially during the high-octane second act and the unexpectedly transcendent third act—and he carries it all with astonishing confidence and depth. It’s a remarkable performance from a young actor with only a few minor credits to his name thus far. Expect to see Alfie Williams everywhere after this—he’s more than earned it.
3. The Soundscape
With 28 Years Later, Danny Boyle dives headfirst into crafting a fully immersive cinematic experience—one that is as invasive, unsettling, and jarring as humanly possible. While we’ll touch on the film’s striking visual elements in a moment, it’s crucial to highlight just how innovative and effective the sound of the film truly is. Sound designer Johnny Byrne and the genre-defying hip-hop group Young Fathers collaborate to deliver a sonic landscape that elevates the film on every level.
Byrne—who also designed the harrowingly visceral sound for the Academy Award-winning The Zone of Interest—brings a raw, guttural intensity to 28 Years Later. When the infected attack, the onslaught is not just visual; it’s auditory. Every scream, every footstep, every chaotic burst is an assault on the ears, creating a deeply immersive experience that rivals (and arguably surpasses) anything we’ve seen in mainstream horror.
Complementing Byrne’s work is Young Fathers, who previously collaborated with Boyle on Trainspotting 2. This time, they return to create both the score and original tracks, and their contributions are nothing short of extraordinary. Known for their genre-blending, time-signature-defying sound, their music becomes a vital emotional and atmospheric thread throughout the film. Boyle’s long-standing love of avant-garde, rule-breaking visual storytelling finds its perfect sonic counterpart in Young Fathers’ bold, unorthodox approach—and the result is nothing short of remarkable.
2. The Frenetic Visuals
The original 28 Days Later was infamously lo-fi, shot on early digital video and defined by Danny Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle’s willingness to push the limits of emerging digital technology. The result was a grainy, disorienting aesthetic that echoed the raw, documentary-like terror of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre—a 2000s-era parallel to what Tobe Hooper achieved with film in the 1970s.
Now, in 28 Years Later, Boyle, Mantle, and new editor Jon Harris make the inspired choice not to replicate that exact visual style, but to evolve it. Rather than chasing the same artifice, they use it as a launching pad to establish a new visual language. The sequel is far more polished and technically advanced, yet it retains the urgency and inventive spirit of the original. By incorporating multi-iPhone camera rigs, drone cinematography, and powerful associative editing that weaves in archival footage, 28 Years Later transforms modern filmmaking tools into something subversive and unsettling. It’s a towering visual achievement—one that both honors and expands upon the iconic aesthetic that defined the first film.
1. The Right Kind of Legacy Sequel
Legacy sequels are so often sold as a return to the familiar—vehicles designed to trigger nostalgia by recycling beloved characters, iconic aesthetics, and well-worn storylines. In many cases, they feel less like creative endeavors and more like corporate exercises in brand management. Films like Jurassic World or Ghostbusters: Afterlife lean heavily on audience familiarity, often prioritizing homage over innovation. But 28 Years Later takes a radically different—and far more sincere—approach.
There are no returning characters, no lovingly recreated locations, no recycled plotlines. Instead, what we get is a wholly original narrative set within the 28 Days Later universe, driven by the return of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland—not to recreate their past work, but to reengage with its themes from a place of growth and renewed perspective. This is not a film burdened by its predecessor’s legacy, but one that uses it as a springboard to reach new heights. In many ways, 28 Years Later feels like Boyle and Garland revisiting the creative DNA of the original film with the wisdom and technical evolution of the past two decades, arriving at solutions and ideas they never would have conceived back then.
The result is a film that is not only more refined and ambitious but also just as raw, provocative, and boundary-pushing as its predecessor. 28 Years Later doesn’t just honor the original—it elevates it. It’s a rare sequel that deepens the legacy of the franchise by being bold enough to evolve it.
RGM GRADE
(A)
28 Years Later is a staggering achievement—scarier, more emotionally resonant, and even funnier than anyone could have anticipated. After decades of honing their talents separately, the reunion of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland feels not only creatively triumphant, but downright historic. The result is a bold, masterful work that stands among the finest of either artist’s career and may very well go down as a defining piece of modern horror cinema.
