Ghost stories are often about grief, but not zombie movies. And sure enough, 28 Years Later’s themes of mourning—for family, for country, for civilization—sit uncomfortably besides its genre jump scares and gore. At its heart, though, tucked away amidst the screaming and the blood, this is a remarkably affecting story about living with disappointment, death, and irrecoverable loss.
Like the title says, the movie’s set 28 years after a zombie rage virus infected Britain. The island has been quarantined by European nations; most of the inhabitants have died or become infected. A few small communities survive, including one on the island of Lindisfarne, where 12-year-old Spike (remarkable child actor Alfie Williams) lives with his scavenger father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his very ill mother Isla (Jodie Comer.)
Jamie takes Alfie to the mainland with his bow and arrows for an initiation in scavenging and killing infected. While there, Spike sees a fire, and learns on his return that it belongs to Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes.) Spike’s angry at his father for not telling him someone was out there who might be able to cure his mother. Further alienated by his father’s infidelity, Spike wants to take Isla to Kelson himself.
Director Danny Boyle is determined to provide genre pleasures, and on both trips to the mainland Spike is menaced by a range of zombies—crawlers who pull themselves along the ground, runners, enormous smart difficult to kill “Alphas.” There’s a huge build-up of suspense each time—and then Spike’s saved, over and over again, when some unexpected human intervener pops up at the last minute to get the zombie before the zombie can get him (or his companions). Once would be unexpected; four or five times and it gets threadbare.
The lack of invention isn’t an accident; rather it’s an indication that the focus of the movie isn’t on the zombies. The infected run around, bellow and slaver, but that’s mostly a distraction from the film’s portrayal of a Britain largely abandoned, in which the existence of cell phones, and even of photographs, has largely been forgotten. The amnesia and regression to pre-modern ways of life is mirrored in Isla’s decline. Her short-term memory, and sometimes her long-term memory, are ravaged; for long stretches she thinks that Spike’s her father. The walk through the ruins of the past is also a walk through the ruins of Isla’s mind; they flee the zombies, but they have nowhere to run to but death. Spike’s coming of age in a tomb.
In this context, it’s probably significant that the rage virus was created initially in 28 Days Later by scientists experimenting on apes; it escapes thanks to ecoterrorists. The isolation of Britain also takes on a different resonance post-Brexit—and the imagery of piles of skulls hits somewhat differently in the current global lurch towards fascism. Spike’s grieving his mother, but he’s also grieving a dream or hope for a better world that feels impossible amidst ecological collapse and metastasizing fascism.
Isla, in one of her fugues, remembers her father talking to her about the future, and wonders what that future will be like, and whether they’ll get there. Unbeknownst to her they have, and instead of a place of wonders, tomorrow’s the place where you mourn the past and can no longer see tomorrow. History is grinding down; the best Spike can hope for is the chance to choose the place where the skulls best fit on the memorial.
Nonetheless, life goes on—the zombies stumble forward, babies are born in the most improbable circumstances. The 28 franchise churns on; the last scene is an incongruously cheery intro to the (presumably less downbeat?) sequel. Time, as the title 28 Years Later indicates, keeps running. And yet in the middle of a series that seems dedicated to racing away from death, Boyle has crafted a film whose strength is in its willingness to stop and tally what we’ve lost, and what we’re going to lose.