Should You Watch or Pass?

Twenty-three years following 28 Days Later, we have 28 Years Later now available for streaming on platforms like Amazon Prime Video. Let’s bypass 28 Weeks Later for now. So technically, Years is the series’ third installment, though it’s being treated like the sequel since director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, who crafted the original into a top zombie classic, are back. The new film has been well-received by critics, scoring 88 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and has done well financially, grossing $150 million worldwide. This success is promising, not just for audiences seeking quality entertainment, but also for the filmmakers, who have already completed a fourth movie, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Notable cast members including Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Cillian Murphy, returning from Days, star in this installment, directed by Nia DaCosta (known for The Marvels and Candyman). The follow-up is slated for release in January 2026, giving us ample time to process the current film’s intense emotional and visceral experience.

The Gist: By “human spines,” we’re talking about them being gruesomely extracted from bodies, still with heads attached. Gross! That’s the handiwork of the terrifying alpha zombies, but we have more to uncover yet. Twenty-eight years after the rage virus transformed countless people into Speedy Zombies, mainland Europe has managed to eliminate the outbreak, returning to normal activities like making TikToks and online shopping, while the British Isles remain a quarantined zombie haven with a few survivors still struggling on their own. Lindisfarne, a small island near the U.K., operates as a healthy quarantine within the larger one. The inhabitants live in a near-medieval state, fashioning weapons for defense, fetching water with buckets, and lacking modern plumbing solutions as of yet. They sustain themselves by fishing, sheep herding, and rely on outdated flashlights for occasional light if the batteries are functioning.

On this island, a family of three makes ends meet: Jamie (played by Taylor-Johnson) is a rugged gatherer, Isla (played by Jodie Comer) is his wife, incapacitated in bed, and Spike (played by Williams) is their 12-year-old son. Breakfast reveals the luxury status of bacon and medicine, as Isla’s condition remains undiagnosed and untreated. Today marks Spike’s initiation into adulthood: under Jamie’s guidance, he is to kill his first zombie on the U.K. mainland. The community supports their mission enthusiastically. Is the place a bit cultish? Possibly. It has its oddities and regional quirks, but everyone seems friendly, although we once thought similarly in the beginning of Midsommar, right? However, the story moves away from such turns, especially compared to the chaos reigning in the zombie-infested areas, just across a causeway that vanishes with the tide.

The disorder is vivid as Jamie, demonstrating machismo, directs Spike to use his adept archery on a crawling, bloated, worm-eating zombie. Jamie imparts harsh truths to Spike, noting, “The more you kill, the easier it gets,” clarifying the zombie’s lack of mind or soul, and mentioning, “There’s odd folks on the mainland” among his words of wisdom. Their journey is perilous, involving dispatching both sluggish and swift zombies and evading an alpha, also spotting a distant fire. Returning, Spike hears rumors that the fire belongs to the only living medical expert in the area. Disenchanted by his father’s machismo, Spike resolves to take his unwell mother to the mainland in hopes of seeking medical aid. Easier said than done? Absolutely.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s almost obvious Danny Boyle stands above Zach Snyder, but 28 Years Later leaves a much stronger impression than the prior significant zombie movie, Army of the Dead.

Performance Worth Watching: The film boasts exceptional performances, with Comer delivering a poignant role and an impressive debut by Williams, who is essentially the lead. Additionally, Fiennes’ emergence in the third act revitalizes the film precisely when it needs an energy boost.

Memorable Dialogue: The Fiennes character: “There are many kinds of death. And some are better than others.”

Sex and Skin: A veritable plethora of extremely gross zombie nudity. Prosthetics abound!

Our Take: 28 Years Later shifts narrative and tonal gears in such a manner that some will deem it muddled or inconsistent. But I found it enlivening, entirely congruent with Boyle’s uptempo, patchwork style. It offers a distinct intensity from the director, who indulges in enough distracting stylistic flourishes, the film feels hectic and overwhelming during the first act. But Boyle – notably shooting entirely on iPhones – concocts some otherworldly imagery, memorable for its strange beauty and suggestiveness. The film does eventually find its groove, when Spike and Isla undertake their adventure, leading to a third-act left turn that somewhat mirrors that of 28 Days Later, and lifts it provocatively out of the confines of genre.

Which is to say, Garland and Boyle have more on their minds than a bare-bones story about what it takes to survive extreme conditions. The nuances of any political allegory was mostly lost on me beyond the basics of Brexit-related isolationism – the rest of Europe seems content with sitting back and watching the U.K. go feral and primitive; meanwhile, the residents on Lindisfarne have regressed to a quietly religious sense of ritual, with the mainland folk seemingly splitting into bizarre sects (something hinted at in a cold open and in the final scene, and likely to be more fully explored in The Bone Temple). 

More universal is Spike’s coming-of-age, where he’s forced to learn the harshness of life, death and survival long before he considers the stuff of more modern narratives, e.g., love, sex, finding your passion and your place in the world. The film is Spike’s deeply melancholy awakening in many ways. Even more profound is Garland’s exploration of the philosophies of death, conveyed by Fiennes in a typically invigorating performance that incorporates deep, empathetic kindness and great madness all at once. It’s in these moments that the apocalyptic context affords mercy as much as brutality in a profound and fascinating manner. Perhaps those scenes sit uneasily next to those in which seemingly steroid-amped alpha zombies rip heads off, but such is the extremity of the human experience.

Our Call: It’s very, very corny, but just as true, to say the zombie-movie subgenre is all but undead at this point – but 28 Years Later is inventive enough to reinvigorate it. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.