28 Years Later Will Tear Apart Your Flesh and Burrow Its Way Into Your Heart

I believe elevated horror can only go so far before it reaches its apex. Before its spirit becomes diluted by those who do not understand the message inherent within the genre and instead affix its mask onto hollow schlock. Horror doesn't need to be smart, it just needs to be affecting. But 28 Years Later achieves both and Danny Boyle once again sets the standard for what a zombie film can be.

Horror, at its best, reacts to its environment;, It adapts and changes to fit the societal climate. Just like 28 Days Later did in 2002 by reacting to the world as its thirst for violence was bubbling over; while rage was being sold as the cure to our maladies by being directed outwards toward the ever-present other. 28 Years Later does the same. This time for a world burnt out on its own anger, guts overstuffed and overfed with conflict. One in need of a breather to take a moment and reflect on the nuance of the situation we've found ourselves in.

I had no idea how incredibly weird and artful 28 Years Later would be. At no point did this film play it safe, spending most of its runtime taking wild swing after wild swing. The first 30 minutes are filled with so many interesting and ingenious editing choices. Boyle could have so easily spent that time having Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson ) explain the rules of the world to his inexperienced son Spike (Alfie Williams ). Luckily, he's an intelligent filmmaker who trusts his audience to put the pieces together themselves.

28 Years Later finds so much beauty in humanity. Refreshingly, humans are not the real monsters here and thank God for that. I don't think I can stomach another piece of zombie media exploring that tired trope. The zombies are a human mistake, but we have learned our lesson and are trying to be better. There isn't a single character that exhibits any form of malice or evil. This is not a cruel film, but a sensitive and tender one. The people on the quarantined island of the United Kingdom have depended on their small pockets of community to keep them going.

The journey Spike sets out on is for the sole purpose of helping his mother Isla, played magnificently by Jodie Comer with hints of Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence, suffering from some unknown illness that has left her bedridden with brutal headaches and lapses in memory.

Spike heard that somewhere out there on the mainland lives a doctor. Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes ), more of a myth than anything, believed to have been driven insane by the fall of society because of his unusual relationship with the dead. In reality, the opposite has happened. Kelson isn't insane, he's deeply compassionate and wishes only to honour the dead in ways that might frighten others, but are ultimately harmless. He's a gentle man who has accepted the fate of the world and does not fear it. His compassion even extends to the zombies – he has concocted a way to tranquilize them instead of killing them. He exists alongside them and, although isolated, has clung to his humanity.

Kelson's treatment of Spike's mother while diagnosing her, in a sequence that had me fully sobbing in the theatre, is tender and sweet. The people who’ve survived are inherently good and maybe that's why they survived. They've built community, taken care of each other, they watch each other's backs and lend help when another is in need. A bloodthirsty society with nothing to gain but self preservation would never be able to last this long. Survival of the fittest does not apply to the individual, it applies to the group. There is strength in community and you can only have community with compassion.

Kelson adds a folkloric flavour to the film, how stories shape and change a person. Enough time has passed for the real history of the world to be mixed into legend by those who are left to tell it. Stories of this world have become a gospel – a song of survival. There is only one path to live and one that ensures your safety. This is exemplified in the outstanding score by Young Fathers with their track Promised Land.

The air of the film is filled with religious jubilation – impenetrable hope in the days long after the apocalypse. I can't remember the last time I felt so compelled to seek out every single song I heard in a film. It's reminiscent of the first film's use of A.M. 180 by Grandaddy and a reminder that Danny Boyle has great taste.

The way this film was made is so unique. Nearly every single scene is filled with something new and risky. Enough time has passed that I almost forgot this kind of thing is what Danny Boyle and Alex Garland made their name doing. It would have been so easy for Boyle, much like many directors of legacy sequels have done, to do the exact same thing he did the first time. It still holds onto the essence of the first film by building on it, crafted by hands that have been honed and steadied by years of experience.

The photography of this film is breathtaking. Shooting on iPhones – with the assistance of cinema lenses and other accoutrement – recreates the lo-fi grainy aesthetic of the first film, albeit with a lot more technical control. It still looks awash in dirt and mud, as if we were watching the film on a water damaged VHS tape we found in the basement of an abandoned house. However, in this case the super rig made of a dozen cameras to create a “bullet time” effect felt a little too much like an effect from a video game. I was relieved when these effects were used sparingly for the rest of the film and by the end I had completely stopped thinking about them.

Amongst the dirt, mud, blood and bile is a beautiful contrast of nature’s vibrant greens and yellows that create a sense of healing. The world has been sick for nearly three decades and, while the zombies have adapted and survived, so have the people; and despite it all they’ve held onto what makes them human.

Those hoping for the same stomach-dropping terror of the original film might be a bit disappointed to realize that 28 Years doesn't share the same edge-of-your-seat intensity where every single moment is filled with unbearable anxiety. Don't worry, it's still scary and some moments are intense as hell. But there is so much more here than just a terrifying zombie movie. Boyle already did it once. Why do it again when, after all this time, this world has far more interesting stories to tell.

The ending is absolutely batshit insane though. I mean, laugh-out-loud bizarre. It’s a scene so weird it feels ripped straight from Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever; the one with the weird blonde karate kid. I've never seen a film take such a wild left turn in tone just to set up a sequel. You know what? The film is just so good that it earns the right to leave you speechless at the end with something that stupid. So stupid it rules, actually.

28 Years Later is brilliant and an absolute standout amongst a bevy of disappointing horror movies from the past year and a half. The genre is safe in the hands of Danny Boyle.