Review: 28 Years Later (2025) 🧟‍♂️🩸💀

Let’s start by showing yall the trailers shall?

Also heres a video of the song in the trsiler that Sony released on YouTube.

It’s been nearly 30 years since 28 Weeks Later left fans with that chaotic cliffhanger in Paris—and apparently, we waited all that time to get retconned. That’s right. 28 Years Later completely ignores the events of 28 Weeks Later. Remember the infected sprinting across the Eiffel Tower and the implication that the Rage Virus had gone global? Forget all that. According to this movie, the world outside of Britain just moved on and left the UK to quarantine itself like a decaying trash island while everyone else hit reset.

This blatant dismissal of 28 Weeks Later is a slap in the face to fans who thought we were getting a proper continuation. Instead, we get a spiritual reboot disguised as a sequel, set on a small quarantined island that functions like a weird LARP village.

🧟‍♂️ Quick Rant: Can We Stop Pretending “Infected” and “Zombies” Are Two Different Species? 🧟‍♀️

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but “infected” is just a rebranded zombie with a gym membership. Seriously. At this point, the line between the two is blurrier than a bootleg VHS tape.

Let’s break this down:

They bite you.

You turn into a mindless killing machine.

They run, or shamble, or screech like banshees, but the end result is the same—you die or turn.

And 99% of the time, it’s because of a virus.


So, remind me again why we’re acting like there’s this huge philosophical gap between the words “zombie” and “infected”? Because one has speed and cardio? Please. That’s not taxonomy, that’s just CrossFit.

Let’s not pretend this is some purist debate about the undead. Mainstream zombie media—literally for decades now—has tied the outbreak to viruses. Resident Evil, 28 Days Later, Train to Busan, The Last of Us, you name it—they all use infection as the origin story. Even World War Z, which people never question, is just wall-to-wall viral zombies doing parkour.

And don’t even get me started on how nobody questions if the Train to Busan creatures are “real zombies.” Spoiler: they’re the exact same concept. But for some reason, if the creature runs instead of moans, suddenly it’s “not technically a zombie”? That’s just splitting hairs on a rotting scalp.

So please, let’s stop the pedantic gatekeeping. If it walks like a corpse, bites like a corpse, and chases you down a hallway like a corpse—it’s a damn zombie. Call it what it is.

Let’s talk cast:

Spike (Alfie Williams) – Our new protagonist, a boy on the brink of manhood whose rite of passage spirals into a nightmare.

Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) – His emotionally distant father who gets about as much screentime as a midseason Game of Thrones guest star.

Isla (Jodie Comer) – Spike’s bedridden, hallucinating mother who may or may not have superhuman zombie-killing strength.

Erik (Jack O’Connell) – A soldier who joins the group mid-film and delivers one of the film’s darkest and most hilariously dry lines.

Dr. Ian Kelso (Ralph Fiennes) – A blood-soaked, skull-washing, dart-gun-wielding mad scientist who lives in what can only be described as a bone temple. Easily the best part of the movie.

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🧟‍♂️ Plot Rundown (Non-Spoiler)

The film opens with a group of children watching Teletubbies as zombies break into their home. One child survives and escapes to a nearby church where his father—revealed to be a priest—gives him a golden cross necklace before being overtaken.

Flash forward 28 years later, and we meet Spike (Alfie Williams), a teen on a secluded island that’s all that’s left of Britain. The island has a very specific rule: If you leave for the mainland and don’t return, no one’s coming to rescue you. Spike is preparing to take part in a ritual where boys become men by heading to the mainland to hunt their first zombie. His emotionally distant dad, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), takes him across the water path, and together they encounter:

A bloated walker that Spike manages to kill

The Alpha – a completely nude, extremely fast, rage-filled zombie with a beard and very visible anatomy

How they decoder there’s an Alpha our there? Well Spike notices a severead deer head with irs spine in tact lodged on a tree branch. And we get a back flash to the alpha just yanking the dsers head off MK style and predator style, then he walks over to the try and places ir on the tree.

Yeah idk if these are much as zombies are more like art class students, like since when do zombies yeet off heads predator style?


After barely surviving the encounter and returning to their island, the town throws a celebration for Spike’s rite of passage.

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✅ Pros:

Ralph Fiennes steals the movie as a skull-hoarding, philosophical lunatic

The cinematography is striking in parts (dandelion field + skeletal zombie = unsettling beauty)

The infected variants bring fresh visual horror, and this film introduces slow zombies and I’m for it. I love both slow zombies and fast zombies.

One-liners that shouldn’t be funny… but are

Also, the actor who played Spike, this is his first debut as an actor and for his first time acting. He does a phenomenal job, he truly was the heart of this film.

Oh and there are these creepy infrared shots at night of the infected with glowing red eyes, tearing away at animals.


❌ Cons:

Tonal whiplash: Goes from heartfelt survival drama to campy gymnastic death cult by the end

The plot makes zero biological or logical sense

There’s variant zombies, yes this is both in pro and con. Because the issue for me is 1 of the variants aren’t scary. It’s the fast zombies, yes on paper gast zombies are scary but here’s the thing in this film the fast zombies are all nudists, so u can see their everything.

That’s not scary, heck the only thought process I had in this film was Wow they look like they belong at a nude beach.

BTW funny thing I always say I wish a zombie movie would get original and do something unique thrn this film gave us nudist zombies and I was like on second thought I take it back

The nudist zombie with the Mortal Kombat finishers was… a choice

28 Weeks Later fans get spat on

The dialogue often feels like a first draft or an improv exercise gone rogue

Oh, and there are freeze-frame arrow kills with glitchy camera effects every time a zombie gets shot.

Or as the director describes it as a poor man’s bullet time.

Oh and last thing, this film decides to plop in random grainy footage of medieval soldiers shooting arrows at enemies, like it’s completely jarring.

Also, this film does the ultimate zombie sin where it makes the zombies the main bad guys, which should never be the case. The zombies in films are supposed to be a means to an end, the catalyst if u will, but here? Here, they are just boss fights.

Ok yeah I keep thinking of new stupid things, Our main kid is stupid so let me get this straight, he takes his barley able to walk mother out into the infected main land where like 10 min ago he was out there with his dad and they barley made ut back because they got chased down by the alpha who was close to grabbing them!

Yep makes sense no this kid is Rambo I guess.

Also this film raises so many questions, so now zombies thrive off of nature? Yeah the bloaters eat worms and the fast nudist zombies eat deer.

If that’s the case why didn’t they do that in 28 days later instead of dying off from starvation?

Also, remember in the trailer we see someone wearing a creepy mask? We all thought clearly this is a cult. Uhhh nope, that’s an idea that’s in ur head that’s for sure. But nope just nope.

The Fast Zombies… Aren’t Even Zombies

Let’s talk about the infected—no, let’s call them what the film refuses to be honest about: the so-called “fast zombies.” And here’s the problem with that label—they don’t look like zombies. At all. Like, not even a little bit. These are not undead, rotting, shambling horrors. These are gym bros who rolled in dirt, skipped leg day, and joined a murder cult.

They’ve got all their limbs, zero bloodshot eyes, no visible rot, and somehow perfect posture. If you told me they were just angry cavemen who escaped from a historical reenactment gone wrong, I’d believe you. The film clearly wants to sell the horror of infection, but instead of horrifying corpses, we get a bunch of shirtless sprinters who look like they just finished a tribal rage therapy session.

Where are the signs of decay? Missing jaws? Ribcages on display like it’s a walking anatomy lesson? Red eyes? Black veins? Something to sell the idea that these are dying or dead people whose bodies are giving out? Nope. Just mud. Maybe some blood. Mostly mud.

It’s like the director went, “Let’s make zombies scarier by making them hot.” And I hate that it kinda worked for some people. But not me. I came here for decomposing nightmares, not CrossFit cavemen with anger issues.

Also lastly Let’s get one thing straight: this Alpha is not a zombie. Zombies stumble. Zombies rot. Zombies don’t have abs you could grate cheese on. No, this beast isn’t infected. He’s invested—in his gains.

In the immortal words of YouTuber The Kingerd, this isn’t just an Alpha.
That’s Long Shlong Sampson.

And once you hear it, you can’t un-hear it. The man is sprinting through the apocalypse like he’s late for his underwear modeling gig. He doesn’t groan, he grunts. He doesn’t bite, he body slams. You don’t survive him—you get absolutely crossfitted to death.

🧟 Are These Even Zombies?

One of the biggest problems with 28 Years Later is… well, what the hell even are these things supposed to be? The first two films gave us a clear, terrifying vision of rage-infected humans — stripped-down, animalistic, and horrifyingly real. But here? We get… naked nudist factions. That’s not me being cheeky — the so-called “zombies” in this movie are all inexplicably nude, and the film goes out of its way to show you.

Instead of feeling threatening, it borders on ridiculous:

The Bloaters, who literally crawl on the ground and eat worms (that’s it).

The Fast Runners, who look like Abercrombie models with beards and… let’s just say “everything out.” Their leader — the so-called Alpha — has abs, long hair, a wild beard, and yes, a full frontal reveal that is way more distracting than scary.

Oh, and the “pregnant zombie,” because sure, why not throw that in.

And apparently zombies now eat deer, because we’re just making rules up as we go.


At one point, the Alpha starts ripping heads and spines out Mortal Kombat-style and mounting them on a tree. Cool visual if this were a slasher video game, but what does that have to do with zombies? Absolutely nothing.

The result? These things don’t read as zombies anymore. They’re just… weird, overdesigned horror creatures. And when your third film in a beloved zombie franchise can’t even get the zombies right? That’s a serious problem.


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🌍 World-Building That Makes Zero Sense

Then there’s the bigger picture: the movie’s world-building is flat-out nonsense.

We’re told the rest of the world has completely moved on. The rage virus? Contained. The planet? Back on track. Civilization? Restored. Great! Except… for one island. One little chunk of the UK is still crawling with infected. So what’s the plan? Surely the global community would either extract the survivors or nuke the whole thing, right?

Nope. Instead, this island is just left there, quarantined off while a random walled town of survivors sits smack dab in the middle of it. A fully functioning society, somehow ignored by the outside world.

So we’re supposed to believe:

The rest of Earth has satellites, drones, armies, and the ability to literally rebuild civilization.

But no one thinks to rescue the town of survivors or just wipe the island clean.


The filmmakers’ excuse? They wanted to make things “narrow and grounded” like the first movie. But here’s the thing: the first film was grounded because it felt real. This just feels contrived. The setting doesn’t grow organically from the story — it’s forced into place so the filmmakers can pretend they’re being “gritty” and “artsy.”

Instead of feeling authentic, it feels lazy. The geography doesn’t work. The logic doesn’t work. And the more you think about it, the more it collapses.


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🤔 Final Thoughts

This film is going to divide the fanbase. Either you’re going to be open to something new and enjoy the artsy descent into madness, or you’re going to walk out confused, irritated, or emotionally violated. If you were hoping for a classic 28 Days zombie survival horror? Buckle up. You’re getting an arthouse experiment dipped in blood.

Also no there’s no Cillian Murphy in this film, he’s not a zombie. The director said he will appear at the end of the second film, which if u ask me might hinder this in the long run.

And don’t expect closure—this is just the beginning. 28 Years Later is part one of a planned trilogy. Part two, The Bone Temple, drops January 16, 2026, but Sony won’t greenlight the third until they see how this film and the sequel perform. If this bombs? Enjoy your cliffhanger.

God this film is strange, it’s just bizarre. That’s the only words I have, I walked out baffled. Beggar way to describe it I think I had a malfunction walking out.

BTW I think the 2 directors might have watched Zack Snyder’s Army of the dead because just like there u have a zombie called Alpha and a pregnant lady zombie.

The Alpha wants an infant baby, hmmmmmmmm does think this sounds a bit too familiar.

And final Thoughts, well let’s talk about the Alpha again for a second—because apparently, when you get infected in 28 Years Later, you also unlock Jesus DLC. There’s a scene where Spike and his dad are slogging through ankle-deep water, practically tripping over every step like it’s a swampy obstacle course… and here comes Alpha, Long Shlong Sampson himself, sprinting across the same terrain like he’s doing parkour on invisible lily pads.

He’s not running through water—he’s gliding, levitating, Naruto-skipping across the surface like Poseidon gave him a Red Bull and said, “Go get ‘em, champ.”

It completely undercuts the tension when your big scary zombie man is moving like a cartoon Road Runner on fast-forward. Like, I’m sorry, how are Spike and his dad struggling while this rage beast behind them is pulling a full Biblical water-skip?



🎯 Rating: 5/10

Or if u want specifics

10/10 for weirdness.
5/10 for filmmaking.
∞/10 for “WHAT DID I JUST WATCH.”
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⚠️ Spoilers Ahead! ⚠️

After a huge blowout with his dad, Spike runs away with his sick mother Isla to find the elusive Dr. Ian Kelso (Ralph Fiennes).

Isla starts hallucinating constantly and tears apart zombies in her sleep. She even helps deliver a baby from a pregnant infected woman—and yes, the baby comes out uninfected (????) Yeah, I was left sitting there with my hands in my face making a loud sighhhh.

An infected woman gives birth to a kid, y’all hear how stupid this sounds?

Spike explains this to Dr. Ian, who drops the now-infamous line: “Ahh, the infected placenta.” Yes, that’s a line, I wish I was kidding. The infected placenta! Who wrote this dialog!?

Ralph’s character lives in a DIY tower of skulls called the Bone Temple, has no fences, and cleans people’s heads before stacking them like IKEA decor.

Let’s talk about Dr. Ian and his signature look: absolutely soaked in a mysterious chemical called Oxadien. Why? Good question. The movie never really explains it—just tosses the name out there like it’s common knowledge. “Oh yeah, Oxadien! That stuff everyone keeps under the sink next to the bleach and trauma.”

Apparently, he wears it to protect himself from the infected. Except… how? It’s never clarified if Oxadien is a scent-masking agent, an antiviral coating, or just DIY zombie repellent he concocted while marinating in madness. There’s no world-building, no flashback to him discovering this miracle substance—he’s just drenched in it, head to toe, like it’s his new religion.

And scientifically? It makes zero sense. First, we’re expected to believe this guy survived 28 years by bathing in what’s essentially a chemical mystery cocktail. Second, if it really worked so well, why hasn’t anyone else used it? You’re telling me entire militaries, survivors, and rogue scientists all missed the golden discovery of “just wear goo”?

Worse, the guy’s living in an open-air bone temple, surrounded by skulls and flammable candles—so yeah, let’s coat ourselves in industrial-strength liquid while wandering around like a haunted chemistry experiment.

Bottom line: this isn’t survival science. This is medieval cosplay meets Home Depot clearance aisle, and the film expects us to treat it like brilliance. It’s not. It’s a chemical bath with delusions of grandeur.

Also he’s out here talking about there’s different types of deaths, yeah yeah calm down Socrates.

I’ll give credit though, What I like is that Ralph Fiennes isn’t a madman. That was a lie created, he just looks at the infected as sick people, he treats them like people. He doesn’t see them as a threat.

He euthanizes Isla after diagnosing her with brain cancer, boils her head, and has Spike place it atop the totem like a Christmas tree angel.

Oh hey kid I just tranquilized u and u just woke up, last u saw ur mom she went in the woods with me, and uh here’s her skull, hand me the baby zombie. And the kid just asked the skull and puts it on top of the pile of bones like this is all completely normal.

What the fuck is happening?Ian!

To boil it down, Spike has such a weird reaction as in not an appropriate reaction, he brings his mom to dr Ian, 15 min later he tranquilized the kid and 30 seconds movie time and like 39 min in world time he wakes up and he brings him his mom’s washed skull and says ok u can put it up there ans the kid just looks at it in aw and puts it at the top.

Because that’s a reaction to holding ur mom’s skull after being tranquilized and seeing her head into the woods with Ian!

BTW this bone monument works in a good thing and a bad thing because in the trailer u watch it and see the skull monuments and think instantly what sorta messed up people would do this? And turns out the actual answer is completely mundane. It really undercuts people’s reaction of WTF who would do this.

The answer is just oh when someone dies I put their skull in there



The Alpha zombie (still nude, still crazy) shows up again and gets darted for the third time

Spike leaves the uninfected baby in a basket on someone’s doorstep with a letter explaining everything… like it’s Moses.

Also how dumb and blind is the watcher in the tower? They didn’t even notice a kid leave a baby in a basket overnight nor heard the baby crying until the next day!?

Congrats If I were in charge of that town, that tower person would be fired because not hearing a baby all night means y’all might just attracted zombies to u!

🚨Boom! Influencer Cult With Gymnastic Swordsmen and Blonde Wigs 🚨

Final twist: Spike joins a cult of Power Rangers-meets-death cult acrobats led by the now-grown kid from the opening scene, all wearing bright jumpsuits and flipping around like it’s a Nickelodeon reboot of The Walking Dead.

Also I feel I need to describe the way these people look like, these cult people wearing different colored clean jump suits with bling on them, oh and blonde hair wigs to match their leader Jimmie Crystal (Jack O’Connell) who has blonde long hair and he has grills in his teeth and the cross necklace.

What the hell is this ending? Why does this feel like it’s from a different project? These guys look too clean and like they just got done filming a TikTok.

Also this film felt like it was thinking it’s clever by opening the film with Teletubbies on a screen then show a zombie in the first 20 min hung upside down with the word Jimmy cut into his chest, just to end like this with these Australian accent colorful jump suits wearing bling and wigs, saying ayyyy mate wanna join us?

They look like if the Wiggles joined a gang and started filming TikToks during the apocalypse.

Cultural Context Confusion (A.K.A. Why the Ending Felt Off)

So let’s talk about something that flew over a lot of American viewers’ heads—because frankly, we had no idea. One reason 28 Years Later’s ending left people like me confused wasn’t just the tonal whiplash or the cult Power Rangers cosplay finale—it’s because director Danny Boyle apparently decided to slip in a deeply specific UK reference. The final scene, where Spike joins a cult of “fixers” who save kids from infected, is reportedly a twisted homage to disgraced UK figure Jimmy Savile.

Now, unless you’re British, you probably didn’t recognize that name. Jimmy Savile was basically the UK’s version of Mr. Rogers—he had a long-running show called Jim’ll Fix It, where kids would come on and ask him to solve their problems. He was beloved. Revered. Died in 2011 at 87. And after his death, it came out that he was one of the worst predators in UK history—his known victims ranged from 5 to 55, and the BBC allegedly covered it up to protect its image.

So yeah, when British viewers saw a creepy blond cult leader who “fixes” things by turning traumatized teens into zombie-killing acrobats… they got the reference. Americans? We were just sitting there wondering why the movie suddenly turned into Mad Max: Therapy Camp Edition.

Was it a commentary on institutions exploiting youth? On cults posing as saviors? Maybe. But one thing’s for sure: you shouldn’t have to know UK predator history to make sense of a zombie movie ending. That’s not subtext. That’s a trauma easter egg.

So if you’re American and left scratching your head? You’re not broken.
This is a deeply British trauma bomb that Danny Boyle slipped into the climax like it was just another zombie twist. And the worst part?

*That guy—the cult leader—is the protagonist of the sequel).

So buckle up for The Bone Temple, where the man channeling Savile’s “fix-it” energy leads the survivors of humanity into a new age of skull stacking and somersaults.

Because that’s what the franchise needed, apparently.

BTW why is this all sorts of wrong? Well, think of it like this way. It be like if a film had a group of men called the R Kelly’s, yeah seeing my point?

Also serious? A cult led by a guy named Jimmie Crystal who has blonde hair and a jumpsuit? U couldn’t be more on the nose if u tried.

Ah yes, nothing says fresh horror like recycling the image of one of the most reviled real-world predators. Truly visionary stuff. Round of applause for that creative decision. 👏👏👏

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🎬 This isn’t a zombie film. This is a mad libs fever dream wrapped in a straight jacket made of placenta jokes and spine trophies.

That is not science. That is a trauma incantation, anyways hope y’all enjoyed today’s review. Oh boy this film was something, anyways till next time.

This just in we got our official poster for The Bone Temple, and the first trailer.