Sometimes the greats don’t need follow-ups.

Twenty-eight years after the Rage Virus infected the United Kingdom, an isolated village still prospers. But when one of the villagers is affected by an unknown illness, a solution may exist outside of their walls.

British director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland return for this third entry in the zombie trilogy. Well, “zombie” is an inaccuracy. Starring Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, and Alfie Williams, things certainly have evolved since the initial accident in Cambridge.

Does the return of the original creators make 28 Years Later a stone cold classic? Well, some perspective is warranted.

The first movie, led by a young Cillian Murphy and Naomi Harris, released in 2002. It is safe to say that, at this time, the “zombie movie” was dead. Pardon the expression. Since George A. Romero’s Dead series waned in the early 90s, there wasn’t any new blood. 28 Days Later introduced the world to the question: “What if zombie was fast?” and coincidentally, this was the same year that television’s The Walking Dead’s first comic was conceived. Fast-forward 23 years (why didn’t they wait 28 years?) and we’ve seen a lot of zombie media. A lot of this upsurge is directly inspired by 28 Days Later. So to say we have a saturation of zombie horror media is an understatement. The Walking Dead alone did enough damage, but we also have The Last Of Us taking its place.

All of this is to say that 28 Years Later isn’t rocking the world the same way as Days did. The more avant garde choices here, which are clearly Boyle and Garland’s fingerprints, will likely baffle and confuse audiences accustomed to the current zombie genre. It has been twenty-three years after all. No, we don’t talk about 28 Weeks Later (nor do we need to, in this case)

So what are we looking at here. Twenty-eight years after the events of the 2002 movie, we see a village on a tiny island, off the coast of the UK. Their means of reaching the mainland is a land bridge only accessible at low tide. Our protagonists are Jamie, Isla (get it?), and their son Spike. Twelve year old Spike is deemed old enough for his first “hunt”. A rather brazen act of going to the mainland and killing roaming infected. Their community is lively but reliant on basics to survive, and anything pillaged from the mainland. However, the mainland’s inhabitants have changed over the decades as well…

For zombie horror genre fans, there’s plenty here to enjoy and admire. Post-apocalyptic scenery. Humanity living off the land. The infected are still gross as ever; the virus passing on through blood, so they still vomit and shower blood everywhere. Running around wild, naked and rotten. The characters and their performances are good; the story still focused on them rather than the virus. A reliable hallmark of a good zombie movie.
It looks great as well. There’s a neat film-making decision as well, Boyle freeze frames the moment an arrow strikes an Infected’s head. It is brutal but quite satisfying to see. There’s a scene in a petrol station that is very memorable indeed.

But… I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed. With 28 Weeks Later being the black sheep of the trilogy, and now 28 Years Later having arrived, it feels like this shouldn’t even be a franchise. Boyle doesn’t make franchises. The sequel to Trainspotting in 2017 was also a strange case of indifference to me. 28 Days Later was a seminal “zombie” movie, but its uniqueness was in its implementation and its visuals. This new entry looks like every other zombie movie and TV show. It doesn’t have silenced London streets. It has forests, lots and lots of forests. Like every single other horror movie made. Days also was resoundingly British. Whereas Years is a little less so. There is a delightful bit of back-and-forth with a soldier character, which grounds everything a little more.

Alex Garland’s filmography has been underwhelming recently. Civil War and Men, both missed the mark for me. 28 Years Later feels less inventive, with less conviction. Its weird dreamlike qualities are echoing 28 Days Later, but with more ham-fisted implementation. One wonders if the writing peaked with such excellent work as Ex Machina and Annihilation.

So it earns points in visual quality and for performances within. But as someone who watched the original in 2002 and adored it, I don’t see myself buying a trilogy box. Or be excited for more; I’d rather have more weird experiments like Men than another franchise.

It is good, just not as stand-out as expectations hoped for. Maybe expectations were too high.

Additional Marshmallows: Delicious trailer, though. Wow.