A father/son coming-of-age zombie hunt? What’s the worst that could happen?
Once upon a time in 2002, 28 Days Later led a post-Romero zombie revival that’s technically never ended if you’re still following at least one Walking Dead spinoff. (No, thank you.) Its depiction of a paler-than-usual 21st-century England overrun by frantic super-speed vomiting jitterbuggers was an electrifying revelation up until it turned into a military action flick and we all learned Humanity Is The Real Monster. But within the span of that terrifying first half, no one could deny the harmonic convergence of Trainspotting director Danny Boyle, The Beach‘s novelist-turned-first-time-screenwriter Alex Garland, and young unknown Cillian Murphy. The audience’s scars from that first half never fully healed.
Boyle and Garland hopped from horror to sci-fi with the riveting apocalypse of Sunshine, leaving their zombie apocalypse in other hands. I never bothered with the sequel 28 Weeks Later unless you count Screen Junkies’ recent Honest Trailer, which seemed like all the recap I needed. Generations later Boyle and Garland reunite for 28 Years Later along with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, whose early pioneering in digital video worked wonders with Days‘ haunting imagery and jump-scare nerve-shredding before jump-scares were played out. The old team ignores Weeks and once again cranks up the visual voltage for half a film, only to diverge yet again from the undead stampede for someplace else. This time the topical shift resonates more bittersweetly. Well, mostly.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 