Review: ‘28 Years Later’ is bloody and bizarre in the best ways

2025 / Dir. Danny Boyle

☆ 4/5

In 28 Years Later—Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s madcap follow-up to their zombie hits 28 Days Later (2002) and 28 Weeks Later (2007)—a massive zombie “Alpha” dubbed Sampson sends his zombie pack to hunt for spines, Ralph Fiennes slathers himself in iodine while collecting corpses, surviving humans race for safety under the Northern lights, and a young boy tries to find his way in an absurd world.

The original 28 Days Later revived the zombie genre, leading to dozens of descendants and imitators that this sequel could have easily joined as a “legacyquel” IP cash grab. Instead, Danny Boyle mines his punk experimental Trainspotting roots with decades of experience and modern technology to create what is sure to be one of the most unique and out-there big-budget films of the year. iPhone-shot images range from stretched, gorgeous panoramas to warped distortions. They get intercut with British propaganda and old war films, while rapid-fire edits jump freely in time and reality in ways that would make Godard proud. 

While the breadth of experimentation on display will excite cinephiles, it’s all grounded in a heartfelt, harrowing, and often zany story following Spike (Alfie Williams), a young boy growing up on an isolated island off the coast of quarantined, zombie-ridden Great Britain. Spike learns to find his way in two awkwardly connected yet fascinating halves, each centered upon a different parent. In the first section, his father (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes him off the island for his first zombie kill to introduce him to the brutality outside their cloistered shores. In the still-harrowing but more lyrical and odd second part, Spike travels with his sick mother hoping to find the local madman (Fiennes), rumored to have been a doctor before the old world lost its way. 

Spike’s bildungsroman goes to some bizarre, goofy, and even psychedelic places that may alienate hardcore fans of the original and horror fans just looking for bloody kills and zombie thrills (there are still plenty of both). But those risks in storytelling and filmmaking help freshen the genre’s tired tropes and ensure its survival for another 28 years to come.

Watch if you like: Trainspotting, The Last of Us, and tripping on acid then waking up the next morning to find you’d created a two-hour manifesto about the cycle of life and death and the universe on your phone.