28 Years Later

A sequel to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, the UK zombie outbreak movies from a couple of decades ago. Danny Boyle is back behind the camera, and in this one we follow a community of people living in isolation from the UK mainland on Lindisfarne, a tidal island off the North-East coast. 12 year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) takes to the mainland to hunt zombies with his dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), as a rite-of-passage ritual.

The first act of the film is pretty standard issue zombie thriller stuff, but I got the sense that Boyle wasn’t that interested in this. When Spike and his dad return to the island, there’s hints of folk horror and alternative history as we discover how people have managed to stay alive for so long.

Then it changes gear again as we set off on another quieter journey with Spike and his mother (Jodie Comer) in search of a fabled doctor living on his own out in the countryside (Ralph Fiennes). Spike’s mother is quite ill and he hopes to be able to help her get better. It’s here that we find the film’s strongest sequence I think, with excellent performances all round delivering a poignant and important break from the action.

This is an uneven film. Weird throughout, sometimes ‘good weird’ and sometimes ‘trying too hard weird’. There’s a slightly under-baked commentary about nationalism and isolationism, but on the other hand a beautiful thought piece on the nature of life and death, and a well rendered coming of age story.

The biggest let down is the wacky final scene, which is fairly amusing but kills the emotional impact of the film. Plus it sets up a sequel, which I usually find quite irritating and this is no exception. I think it sours what is otherwise quite an off-beat and creatively interesting take on the genre.