In a year that saw an exemplary run for horror films, surely 28 Years Later was one of the more overtly out-there and unpredictable entries. With the return of original director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, we returned to an infection-plagued Britain very different to the one we first experienced back in 2002 that followed a young boy named Spike as his journey away from his secluded island community took him on a nightmare rollercoaster ride toward becoming a man.
However, anyone expecting a concise ending were spectacularly blindsided by a final act that not only revealed that this was only the opening salvo in a proposed trilogy that already had it’s second installment in production. But with Candyman’s Nia DaCosta at the helm, she had quite an insane ending to start from that threw in skeletal structures, an iodine coated Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell leading a shell-suited ninja cult and more absurdly well hung Infected than anyone could possibly have predicted. Has the Bone Temple the moxie to grab such a deranged baton and run with it?
When we last left an infection ravaged Britain, young Spike was continuing on his epic, brutal odessy after leaving his secluded village a putting his sick mother to rest. However, while the threat of the rage-infested Infected is ever-present, Spike finds out that there are more dangers out in the world other than naked ghouls with their privates flapping in the wind when he ran smack bang into the Jimmys. The Jimmys are a murderous cult run by the flamboyant Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal a man who believes he is the son of “Old Nick” (aka. The Devil) and has embraced the chaos by amassing a gang of seven “fingers” and creating them in his own image by cladding them in a look that’s part Jimmy Saville, part Tellytubby. Before he knows what to do, Spike has been enlisted to join the Jimmys on their mission of murder and chaos by killing one of the previous Fingers in combat and soon finds himself trapped with the enigmatic cult leader.
Meanwhile, back at the Bone Temple memorial, Ian Kelson has finished his life’s work by honoring the dead and has made something of a fascinating discovery. After having numerous run-ins with the hulking Alpha Infected Kelson has named Samson, the former doctor has been protecting himself from the brute by blow-darting him with morphine darts and as a result, has noticed that it seems to calm the more violent effects of the infection. Despite the fact that his morphine levels are running dangerously low, Kelson, presses on with his research finding that Samson is actually becoming more lucid with every dose.
However, his experiments have to take a quick sabbatical when he’s discovered by Jimmy Crystal who is noticing dissension in his ranks and needs something of a bizarre favour. Can Spike escape this crazed cult; has Kelson actually found a cure for the Rage Virus; or will the insanity of Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal wash over everything and cause only disaster.
With Boyle tagging out after the truly epic serving of world building of 28 Years Later, it’s with great joy to announce that Nia DaCosta not only just justice to that tonal suplex of the first film’s ending, but manages to deliver a sequel that actually betters it’s immediate predecessor. For a start, it helps that DaCosta has been given the freedom to do her own thing and not try to emulate the twitchy, glitchy style that Boyle used to reintegrate us with this brutal world and also adding to the more focused feel is the somewhat smaller scale the Alex Garland’s script has afforded itself. Narrowing it’s attentions to just cover the twin ideologies of both the monstrous Jimmy Crystal and the more rational Kelson, there’s no mention of the island of Lindisfarne, Spike’s father or the healthy baby born from the womb of an Infected woman and as a result, the story is free to explore these two, vastly different personalities as they continue with their very different works.
To turn our attentions to the quieter side of the coin, a returning Ralph Fiennes turns in yet another performance as the reclusive Dr. Kelson, but with more screentime to really strut his stuff (in some cases literally), watching the iodine smeared man go about his business proves to be the strangely soothing ying to Jimmy Crystal’s demented yang. For a start, his growing relationship with Chi Lewis-Parry’s (in another actual balls-out performance) rapidly mellowing Samson could have been a distracting misstep, especially when Kelson’s love of 80s music and a desire to get stoned with his patient/friend leads to some genuinely funny and surprisingly heart warming moments.
Of course, whenever focus shifts to the deviant acts of Jimmy Crystal, DaCosta crazies things up thanks to the help of Jack O’Connell who, after Sinners, now has racked up his second, genre defining villain in two years. Grinning at everybody through crooked teeth and holding court with his Mansonesque cult of personality, he’s positively electric as he offers the mutilation and murder of cowering families due to his childlike understanding of what evil is supposed to be. Not only does it mercifully make sense of that infamous closing moment from the previous film, but it builds on that movie’s prologue that delivered us Jimmy’s origin story before we even knew who this lunatic is. Also allowed to shine is Solo’s Erin Kellyman who plays Jimmy’s doubting lieutenant, Jimmy Ink (“We’re all Jimmy.”), whose crisis of faith is mirrored by all the religious allegories throughout the story. All this does mean that Alfie Williams’ magnificent Spike is now more along for the ride rather than leading it, but it’s all worth it when we get to a climax that I’m confident will remain one of the scenes of the year.
Obviously, I’m not going to spoil it suffice to say you’ll never hear Iron Maiden’s “The Number Of The Beast” quite the same way ever again – chances are you’ll see Fiennes in a new light also as the finale not only proves to be utterly unexpected, but it hits a perfect sweet spot that renders it insane, awesome, ridiculous and rousing while somehow never lurching into the realms of silly. In fact, the only wrong foot it places is that we’ve now got a multi-year wait for the trilogy to be finished – something that’s made even more excruciating thanks to the last second return of an already spoiled legacy character. Still, it’s tough to complain when you get a middle chapter that’s so good and still gives you all the gore, scares, poignancy and full frontal Infected nudity you’ve come to expect from this fearsome franchise return.
At turns darkly funny, genuinely horrific and immensely moving, Nia DaCosta impressively takes the reigns to once again prove that 28 Years Later is still the literal swinging dick of post-Romero infection/zombie cinema. Maybe I’m calling it a bit too early, but it seems that the horror renaissance of 2025 is set to bleed into this year too – with actual blood.
How’s that?
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