Bat Shit Crazy Fun: 28 Years Later (2025)

Alfie Williams and Aaron Taylor-Johnson

I recall watching 28 Days Later (2002) in a packed theater on a weekday shortly after its release, at a matinee show. This was a Wednesday show at 1 pm, typically a "dead time" for a horror film back then, yet the theater was completely sold out. Once the end credits began to roll and I slogged my way back out of the theater, I remember being very grateful that the sun was shining in a mostly cloudless sky that day. 28 Days Later evolved from being a zombie film-style romp with a distinctly different take, delving into humanity's inhumanity to its fellow man. I was never so grateful to see that what I witnessed in the last 113 minutes was indeed just a movie. And I was not alone. Every single patron of that theater who shambled out behind me made their feelings about what we had just watched very vocal. At the theater where I watched it, there seemed to be a collective sigh of relief that it was only a movie once we all exited and made our way to our cars. It had an impact. This was not a zombie movie, although it was marketed as such; however, it was something that, back in 2002, we could not truly comprehend. Human beings infected with a virus that propelled them to kill other humans, and non-infected humans taking advantage of others who are also not infected but far more vulnerable.

Five years later, in 2007, I skipped the theatrical debut of 28 Weeks Later largely because I didn't think the film even needed a sequel. I caught it a year later in 2008 on DirecTV on-demand. I enjoyed the movie for what it was, and I was surprised that the film could convey the same sense of dread and absolute despair within the first fifteen minutes. When actor Robert Carlyle abandons his wife to save his own ass, still has an emotional impact on me even though the rest of the picture, although done very well, was a paint by number photoplay of what "We" thought might have happened after the first film provided by the filmmakers based on what "We" wanted to have happened in a sequel.

So, seventeen years later, I went into 28 Years Later thinking I would be seeing more of the same from the first two pictures. The day before, I watched a double feature at home with my wife, featuring both previous entries so that she could catch up on the series.

The absolute only throwaway part of 28 Years Later is the opener. Sorry, I have to shit on that hard because that little tid-bit was already featured in the teaser and theatrical trailers. The kids are watching Teletubbies and so on. Director Danny Boyle (returning to the series after directing the original) has completely set us all up. We fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. He got us back into a theater seat to presumably watch another retread of the first film. Which we all were ready to imbibe, but wait, Boyle has something else in mind!

After that opening scene plays out, thankfully quite fastidious, the third entry properly begins 28 years later, and without spoiling anything for those who haven't seen it yet, it is an intriguing premise. But, just as we get used to engaging with how the world of 28 Days has evolved two decades later, Boyle shakes your seat, wakes you up, and begins to build upon what the previous films have set in stone.

What follows is a complete "BAT SHIT" experience that shocks you to your very core and makes you realize that what you thought you knew about the 28 Days film series amounts to reading a two page entry in a history book. Danny Boyle has NOT sat on his ass with this film. He does something I wish other directors would have done with films that followed an established franchise. He makes it massively entertaining while also prodding his audience to say, amongst themselves out loud, "What the Fuck?", not just once, but multiple times during the picture.

Again, I won't reveal a single thing in this review as to why 28 Years Later is "BAT SHIT CRAZY FUN", but take the word of a fan of the first two films, in that, Boyle has injected new life into the virus infected denizens that populate his still unfolding 28 Days Universe. It's a refreshing entry into what I thought was a moribund entity.

It's almost impossible to review a movie like this because so few movies have ever been made like this. And, even though this leads into the promised 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, scheduled for release in 2026, it stands quite tall in the current series. Amazingly off-the-wall, jaw-dropping scenes come fast and furious and will make your mind boil for whatever else Danny Boyle has in store for the final(?) film.

Truth be told, what Boyle has wrought here could easily continue in additional films. Whereas 28 Days Later should have been the absolute end, and where 28 Weeks Later added some intrigue and possibilities, 28 Years Later opens the sky up for some truly insane future films that, if they are executed as well as this one, could live on for years to come.