28 Years Later (2025)

From the very first image I got a jump scare… and not the kind the movie intended. Ever since I was very young, the Teletubbies have always given me the creeps… so seeing them appear on screen immediately triggered that old childhood discomfort.

Then came a pleasant surprise: the film shows a short scene from the very beginning of the contagion. It’s a great, action-packed sequence where the infected (often referred to as “Rage Zombies” since the first installment) make quick work of the people in a small community.

The Rage Virus, in my opinion, produces some of the most terrifying zombies in cinema. Infection happens almost instantly, and the victims retain all their physical capabilities… sometimes even enhancing them. They are fast, aggressive, and completely rabid.

In that opening chaos, we see a young boy forced to flee after his mother sacrifices herself while his father remains inside the church, seemingly accepting—or even welcoming—what is happening outside. The kid’s quick instinct to run made me think he might end up being the main character of the film… maybe even the hero of the story.

Moments like that also made me reflect on something a bit more serious. We really need to take better care of our society. Mental health should be taken much more seriously in this day and age. Giving positions of influence or authority to unstable people can be reckless, and situations like the one portrayed in the film highlight how dangerous blind belief can be.

Anyway, the next scene shifts dramatically in tone… and visually, it’s beautiful. We see a small island community, which honestly feels like the perfect base for a post-apocalyptic setting.

Through this setting we learn that the UK mainland has been devastated, while most of Europe managed to contain the virus. Britain has essentially been left isolated, forced to deal with the consequences on its own.

With the world pushed back into survival mode, people have returned to activities that are almost extinct in modern urban life: hunting, gathering, and basic survival skills. It’s an interesting concept, because many of us today have slowly forgotten how to take care of ourselves outside of modern conveniences.

Personally, I wouldn’t even know where to start.

How do you build a proper fire for cooking?

How do you clean an animal after a hunt?

How do you find safe drinking water?

Today we simply walk to the nearest convenience store… or order food from our phones.

After 28 years of survival, you’d expect that some extraordinary individuals would emerge from that environment. Heroes… and probably villains too.

I won’t go too deeply into certain plot details for the small group of readers who might be reading this before watching the film, but one particular moment made me reflect on how dependent modern society has become on medication, hospitals, and constant medical supervision just to maintain everyday life. Remove all of that, and many of us (especially those of us used to city living) would struggle to survive for long.

The pacing of the film also gave me the feeling that this world truly exists decades after the original movie, rather than feeling like a direct continuation of the sequel. Maybe it’s the photography, the atmosphere, or the visual tone, but it felt closer in spirit to the first film.

Once the story reveals who the real focus of the plot is, the movie starts to feel less like a pure survival horror film and more like a coming-of-age story. The main character appears to be the young boy Spike, who travels to the mainland with his father for the first time in order to scavenge and prove himself.

The song “Boots” by Young Fathers adds a very eerie and unsettling tone to the film, a vibe I already loved when I first heard it in the trailer.

Another interesting addition to the lore is the introduction of Alpha infected, suggesting that the virus has evolved and produced different kinds of infected over time. Expanding the world in this way is one of the movie’s most intriguing ideas.

It took me a while to get to the point, but in the end 28 Years Later left me with mixed feelings. I walked away with some unmet expectations… and, oddly enough, a craving for something with a little more meat on the bone.

Don’t get me wrong… it’s a decent movie.

It just wasn’t everything I hoped for as the first horror film in my return to the genre.

However, learning that a sequel was filmed back-to-back and is scheduled to release as early as January 2026 gives me some hope. Maybe this film is only the first half of a larger story; something similar to how It (2017) or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010) split their narratives into two parts.

And if that’s the case, the next installment might deliver the payoff this one was setting up.