Recently, there was an opportunity to revisit “28 Days Later,” a well-regarded post-apocalyptic horror film from 2002, on the big screen. The U.K. has been infected by the Rage Virus which turns human beings into “infecteds,” zombie-like humanoids who roam the streets, spewing blood and spreading the virus by biting the uninfected. The only way out is to kill an infected before they can attack. Meanwhile the country has been quarantined and no-one can leave. There was a sequel back in 2007; and the next follow on, “28 Years Later” (Columbia Pictures), is showing now at the Montrose Playhouse.
Still under quarantine, a group of survivors arm themselves with bows and arrows and create a virile, low-tech, pre-industrial existence on Holy Island, just south-east of the Scotland/England border, which can only be accessed at low tide and via a mile-long causeway. Spike is of the age where boys go with their fathers to the mainland to learn how to kill. His father, Jamie, encourages him, “Let’s go for your first kill.” “Beautiful kill, Spike! You feel good?” “There’s another kill here if we’re lucky.” “Head and heart, Spike.” “Good lad.” But it is clear that the gruesome educational trip is to enforce a specific message as well—Spike needs to develop tunnel-visioned suspicion of foreigners, “There are strange people on the mainland…that’s why our home is so precious.” They flee from infecteds, returning to a strangely over-the-top celebration—the ladies prepare food then a male stand-up comedian entertains the Island with popular jokes about heroic killings.
The dash back across the (partially underwater) causeway, screaming to attract the attention of the guards (to destroy the “alpha” closing in on them and open the gates) is one of the most exciting scenes I have ever seen at the cinema. The decision to film the scene at night under a gorgeous starry sky with a soundtrack from Wagner, the rapidly changing direction of the camera’s view, the frantic shouts of “Incoming!” “Alpha!” “Go, Spike!” set my heart racing. It is a spectacular piece of filmmaking.
The bloody infecteds in various states of dying are contrasted starkly with the over-green English countryside of make-believe, the kind seen on those absurd advertisements for motor cars. Skulls with neck bones still attached, intestines hanging out, the precise parts of the body to pierce for a guaranteed kill—there’s a specificity, an anatomical precision. There’s also a social class division within the infecteds themselves: some fat, almost powerless, crawling on the forest floor sucking worms; others fit, wily, dangerous, able to outrun their human prey.
But Spike’s mum, Isla, is sick, we assume mentally ill, and in the absence of healthcare has been left in bed, her life chucked away. When Spike hears about a crazy doctor on the mainland, he distracts the guards and smuggles his confused mother off the Island to get medical help.
I should pause to give credit to fourteen-year-old Alfie Williams, who plays Spike. He does the legwork on behalf of the audience, committing us to travel all the way from obeying his father, to fretting about his mother, to the penny dropping, “They’re all lying, Mum,” to doing the right thing and hunting a doctor (rather than an infected). Normally parents make decisions on behalf of their children; here it’s the exact opposite. The gift Alfie Williams has to reflect all this in his face and capacity to rise to the director’s considerable demands of him are beyond exceptional. Elsewhere, well-cast Aaron Taylor-Johnson, playing Jamie (Dad), needs to fit into the prideful Holy-Island tribe and only loves his son conditionally, for as long as Spike conforms to his father’s values. The fabulous Jodie Comer, playing Isla (Mum), could be seen at the Playhouse recently in a one-woman play from National Theatre Live, Prima Facie. Here, sometimes mistaking Spike for Jamie, she confuses the audience too—we care about her, so why do none of the adults on the Island?
If there is a current film at the Playhouse to see more than once, this is it. Why? Because writer Alex Garland and director Danny Boyle have created an installation, a work of art more than a movie. Imagine a model-train set placed in the lobby of a luxury hotel at Christmas. From every angle there is something different to see. The layers upon layers of ingenuity in the cinematic masterpiece which is “28 Years Later” could fill a ten-thousand word piece, so I’ll need to be disciplined and summarise.
The first vantage point is technical: the sixteen locations within the U.K., the light at different times of day (the shot of the “alpha” under the lone tree at sunset is sensational), the soundscape (the multiple species of birds in particular), the dream sequences shot in red, the military footage blended in from earlier films, the iPhone technology, the monstrous “birth” scene (on a 1980s train complete with the InterCity livery and carriages). The second is political: a severe appraisal of the state of the U.K. from Brexit to the present day—idolising charismatic white men while furiously blaming anyone different from “us;” the state of the N.H.S.; militarised borders, paranoia over refugees, detention camps. It is uncomfortable and challenging—even to write about. Moving round the installation to see the raucous celebration scene from a political direction, it becomes an orgy of self-congratulation and delusion, a mob jubilant over a profoundly feral rite of passage (to kill), the late Queen looking on. And the very last image at the end of the credits is of the St. George’s flag, as if left in a goody bag after a children’s party. Finally the biblical: an abandoned baby, the Day of Judgment, seeking refuge in churches, Golgotha (the place of the skull). There may be more.
In a crushing line later on, “He wants to make sure you are tough enough, like him,” Isla seems to tell us everything—that in a violent man’s world only certain things matter…and her health is not one of those things. But in saying, in effect, “I refuse,” Spike shows how inward-looking, small-minded, and self-absorbed that little island has become: 28 years later, it is at a dead end. Spike has enough compassion and imagination to show us the way out.
Adam Poole
21st June 2025
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
