Life's normals in a ravaged world

28 Years Later
DIRECTOR: DANNY BOYLE

Twenty-eight years is long enough for cultures to evolve and for generations to be born who only know a post-pandemic world. In Danny Boyle’s follow-up to his 2002 zombie apocalypse horror movie 28 Days Later, also written by Alex Garland, those infected with the incurable rage virus have been quarantined to the British mainland with a European naval blockade in place. They have evolved into three types: helpless packs afflicted by mindless violence; bloated, slug-like worm-eating creatures; and Alpha “fast ones”, with implacable strength and determination. Some of the encounters between these nightmare figures and the survivors who have remained uninfected are edge-of-the-seat thrilling, and yet Boyle also conveys their essential humanity. Post-Covid, he reminds us, they, too, are sufferers, victims of a disease.

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