Vlad Bunoan

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28 Years Later

28 years later running

David Dizon

ABS-CBN News

<div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/175041615293320250620090656_Alfie_Aaron_running.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/>Spike (Alfie Williams) and Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) run for their lives in a heart-pounding scene in &#x27;28 Years Later.&#x27; Handout</div>A group of children are huddled in front of the television watching Teletubbies. Some are entranced while others are disturbed by banging noises outside as an adult tells them not to move. Instead of calming down, the noises grow louder until the violence spills into the room. This is Day 1 of the Rage Contagion and the effects are horrendous, more horrendous even than watching a weird children&#x27;s TV show.That’s the opening scene of &quot;28 Years Later,&quot; the long-awaited third installment in the “rage virus” saga that began with &#x27;28 Days Later&quot; in 2002. While the first and second movies focused mainly on the start of the rage pandemic and its effects in London, this movie takes the story out of the suburbs and into an island community that has cut itself off from mainland England in order to survive.Let’s give credit where credit is due: &quot;28 Days Later&quot; gave undead life to the zombie genre by giving the world something new -- superfast zombies (except of course they aren’t really zombies). Earning $80 million on an $8-million budget, it spawned a slew of imitators including the &quot;Dawn of the Dead&quot; remake, Brad Pitt’s &quot;World War Z&quot; and the Spanish &quot;REC&quot; movies. It also spawned a sequel, which furthered the original’s premise by showing the uneasy realization that the virus may be contained but will never be fully expunged.Nearly 3 decades later, original creators Danny Boyle and Alex Garland return to their rage roots with &quot;28 Years Later.&quot; The new movie centers on 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) who lives with his parents in an island community that has learned to survive and cope with the virus even as the rest of England has become ground zero for the rage-infected. There are of course strict rules in place to ensure that the virus, which can spread via a single drop of infected fluid, will not reach their sanctuary.Spike’s survival skills are tested when his dad takes him outside the community and into the mainland via a tidal causeway. There, they find the infected have mutated and how the non-infected have learned to cope with the contagion.Right off the bat, Boyle and Garland make their mark on their old hunting grounds by largely ignoring the second movie. There is no mention of the rage virus getting out of the UK and into other parts of Europe, making it a direct sequel to &quot;28 Days Later.&quot; For some, this reviewer included, this blindness to the sequel can be a mistake since the opening scene of &quot;28 Years&quot; almost cribs the opening scene of &quot;28 Weeks.&quot;There are no shots of an empty London, of course. Instead, the entire story takes place in the countryside, giving it a feel of total isolation post-COVID. This is a very quiet movie, especially in the second half. Spike’s journey with Isla (a fantastic Jodie Comer) and encounter with Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) gives the story emotional heft. It’s a story that reminds us of the inevitability of death, whether by rage virus, COVID or something else, and how we must treat the dead with dignity.Still, the movie has its shocks. Spike and his dad find out that the infected have mutated, with some rage zombies running in packs with an alpha as leader. A &quot;race&quot; scene on the island&#x27;s causeway was insane -- probably the best scene in the whole movie.One caveat: sequelitis rears its ugly head. Boyle and Garland aren’t quite interested in retelling the Rage Invasion, preferring instead to tell a story about the effects of such a contagion. This microscopic approach would be like telling the story of &#x27;World War Z&quot; -- a worldwide zombie invasion -- but only focusing on mother and son trying to survive it instead of showing the big picture, of what governments were doing to solve it.This oblique approach, of coming to the story via side quest, is reminiscent of Garland’s 2024 movie &#x27;Civil War,&quot; which shows a group of journalists trying to survive a civil war in the US instead of, say, showing us the leaders about said war. This is a more interesting way of approaching the narrative, which goes for more gravitas than bombast and reveals information in surprising ways. For example, a subplot about a soldier who helps Spike and Isla  is the perfect setup for an info dump about what is happening outside of the UK in the past 28 years. It&#x27;s a peek into the big show and then then the curtain falls. &quot;28 Years Later&quot; takes these detours often except that it just… ends, saving up its surprises and shocks for the next two films in the &quot;28 Years&quot; trilogy with one huge plotline dangling.Equal parts horror movie and lament, &#x27;28 Years Later&quot; is a more muted affair that packs plenty of scares. It shows Boyle and Garland have plenty more to say about this world while reminding us tof the things that matter most.<div><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8lo8rDf5ZGo?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe> </div>

Equal parts horror movie and lament, '28 Years Later' is a more muted affair that packs plenty of scares.

Equal parts horror movie and lament, '28 Years Later' is a more muted affair that packs plenty of scares.

Movie review: Muted '28 Years Later' still shocks

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Movie review: Muted '28 Years Later' still shocks

David Dizon,

ABS-CBN News

Published Jun 20, 2025 07:43 PM PHT

Read More:

28 years later

danny boyle

alex garland

ralph fiennes

aaron taylor johnson

jodie comer

horror

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