It’s Spike’s day.
The 12-year-old knew it was coming, and he had been practicing his bow work and knife handling in preparation. But when he finally began jamming his gear into a sack and thinking once more about what this day would hold, he couldn’t stop his hand from shaking just a bit too much.
His father would go with him, of course. Every boy from the island had gone through the hunt ritual since the zombie plague started nearly 30 years ago. But still … he’d have to kill today.
He’d have to leave the safe walls of their small community. He’d walk the causeway that connected their home of Holy Island to the mainland. And he’d have to find a creature that looked for all the world like a living, breathing person … and rip open its flesh with an arrow or knife blade.
These things still bleed! And if you didn’t make them bleed enough, you will bleed even more.
There were two kinds of zombies: The slow, fat zombies that dragged their obese naked bulks along the ground, and the twitchy fast ones. Those were the terrible creatures. They ran at you in screaming packs.
Luckily, they found a few slow ones soon after crossing to the mainland and into the woods. Spike steeled himself, drew back his bowstring and hit the creature in the neck with a handmade arrow, unleashing a gushing torrent. His father dealt with the others.
Instead of heading home, though, they explored a bit more. “You never know what useful items you might find in an abandoned house,” his dad said. Finally, though, Dad said they could leave.
That’s when they saw the pack on the nearby hill. There were maybe 10 or 12 of them. Spike’s father froze and grabbed the boy’s shoulder. There were far more in that group than a few arrows could take out, even by someone as seasoned as Spike’s dad.
Spike had never seen fear in his father’s eyes. But he saw it that day when they spotted what looked like a giant zombie in the pack. “It’s an Alpha,” his clearly shaken father whispered. These zombies not only possessed increased strength and lightning-fast speed, but they were also impossibly smart.
The whole group was maybe forty or fifty yards away. But it was clear that the Alpha had caught their scent. It growled in their direction and screamed; a sound more frightening than anything Spike had ever dreamed possible.
The whole pack charged in their direction.
And Dad yelled, “Run!”
“RUN!”
Spike loves his dad, Jamie, but he’s particularly loving and protective of his mother. She’s suffering with some illness that their small, isolated community can’t help. And when Jamie turns to another woman in the camp, Spike forces him to leave he and mom, Isla, on their own. Spike then puts his life on the line to find some kind of cure for Isla.
In turn, Isla almost instinctively defends her son against a slow-moving zombie, killing it. She also instinctually moves to help a pregnant zombie that goes into labor, helping to birth the baby.
The whole community on Holy Island works to protect each other from the threats outside their walls.
Spike and Isla meet a doctor, Dr. Kelson, in the wilds of the mainland. He’s an odd sort who makes monuments to the slain. But he also does what he can to help Isla and lessen her pain. Spike and Isla help in the birth of a zombie woman’s baby. And they protect the seemingly uninfected child from danger.
During a flashback to the virus’ early days, a frightened boy, Jimmy, runs to a priest praying in the local church. But the man interprets this wave of destruction as the fruition of biblical prophecy and welcomes the slavering zombies in. He gives Jimmy his cross and hides him away. And as the zombies attack and hoist the blood-gushing man above their heads, the boy whispers, “Father, why have you forsaken me.” Years later we see Jimmy as a man, wearing the priest’s cross upside down from a chain.
We also see signs painted on buildings bearing this man’s name. “Behold Jimmy he is coming in the clouds,” one reads. And Spike and his dad encounter a zombie in an empty building, hung up by its ankles with the name “Jimmy” carved into the flesh of its back.
Jamie asks his son to kill a zombie saying, “It’s got no mind, it’s got no soul.” During their journey together, Spike and Isla spot an abstract statue of an angel in an open field.
Dr. Kelson creates bone memorials he calls “Memento mori.” He explains that it’s a Latin phrase that, when translated, means, “remember you must die”—emphasizing the inevitability of death and serving as an encouragement for reflection on a more meaningful life.
Though it’s not necessarily intended to be titillating, nearly all of the scores of male and female zombies are completely naked, only covered lightly in mud or gore. Some zombies are large and slow, crawling on their bellies (we see their exposed backsides.). Others run screaming around, their body parts bouncing freely in the camera’s eye. (Many of those exposed bits are difficult to miss.)
One of those zombies is a naked pregnant woman who later gives birth as she squats and the camera watches closely.
Because of Isla’s illness, Jamie turns to a pretty local woman for sexual comfort. Spike sees them kissing passionately and fondling one another in an alleyway (fully dressed). He also sees his father kneel down and begin to lift the woman’s skirt.
Isla exposes cleavage while in bed. Someone overhears Isla referring to Spike as her father (in a delusional moment) and he wonders if there’s some odd “inbreeding” in the mix.
Though the film spends most of its bloodletting time 28 years after the zombie plague first started, the movie begins by flashing back to when the virus first took hold. We see children watching an episode of Teletubbies before zombified parents burst into the room with blood smeared faces. Terrorized screams and gore abound and set the stage for what’s to come.
Gory violence is the modus operandi here. We see zombies attack and rip bodies apart from every angle. The camera takes time to closely examine the slavering creatures tearing mouthfuls of goopy flesh from bodies.
Many times those who are attacked vomit buckets of blood as they’re being mauled. Sometimes the victims instantly become infected themselves and begin attacking others, sinking their teeth into necks and shoulders nearby.
Some large Alphas grab people and animals by the head and forcefully yank the head and backbone out of the body (to bone cracking and gore-spurting effect). Packs of fast zombies swarm victims and tear at them. Limbs are torn off and the flesh is consumed.
The uninfected fight back with arrows, knives, spears and automatic weapons. We see zombie heads and necks burst open and gush gore. Some are hacked in two. Brains get blown out of the backs of heads. Some of the zombie bodies are ripped open and left profusely bleeding as the creatures run. Some Alphas are hit with multiple arrows and flaming spears.
Slower zombies dig up worms and eat them like noodles in a bowl. We see crows stripping the flesh off of a corpse and nibbling at an open wound. A huge flock of crows swoop in to peck at human victims. Someone talks about the stench from hundreds of corpses lined up in a field. The dead are dragged into a roaring fire.
When Spike confronts Jamie about cheating on his mother, Jamie slaps him and punches a wall. Isla gets repeated nose bleeds. Isla pounds a zombie’s head repeatedly into a stone table while protecting her son. A shooter ignites a building full of gas, setting the screaming occupants ablaze.
Dr. Kelson boils dead bodies and makes monuments to life and death from the bones. We see him striping the flesh and hair off a recently boiled head.
A suffering person is euthanized with a deliberate drug overdose.
The dialogue is peppered with some 35 f-words and a half dozen s-words. We also hear multiple uses of the c-word and “b–tard,” along with the British crudities “b-llocks” and “bloody.” Jesus’ name is misused three or four times.
Crude references are made to the male anatomy.
After Spike and Jamie return safely, the whole town celebrates with a party. They drink heavily, and many people get drunk (including Spike’s father). Spike drinks beer and eventually throws up outside.
Dr Kelson coats himself in iodine, claiming that it’s a natural “prophylactic” against the virus. He has access to morphine and uses it in blow-dart form against zombies.
Kelson gives someone suffering from cancer morphine.
Dr. Kelsen reaches beneath Isla’s clothes to medically examine her breasts, suggesting that she has breast cancer.
Spike cuts an umbilical cord after someone gives birth.
With 28 Years Later, director Danny Boyle returns to the zombie-infested and blood-smeared terrain he first spawned back in 2002 with the film 28 Days Later.
In its early scenes, this latest sequel feels much like an earnest coming of age tale about a boy grasping how to survive and care for the people he loves in a plagued world. Those moments are immersive, intense and well-acted.
Of course, this is also a brutally dark and shockingly gory coming of age tale. And that’s, frankly, the problem here.
Take away director Boyle’s moviemaking style and the story’s familial heart—which could all be encapsulated in about 10 minutes of screen time—and you’ve got an overlong, nonstop screech fest for gore lovers.
The movie is packed with pointless, shocking scenes and spurting blood; muddied, naked actors raging about with body parts flopping; and people being torn into goopy chunks and gobbled by the mouthful. And that’s not even accounting for the intensely foul language, booze swilling and euthanasia that fills in the random cracks and crevices of the story.
This is definitely not a film for the faint of heart or for that matter, anyone thinking of enjoying a meal anytime soon.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
