In a media landscape with no shortage of legacy sequels and contagion horror, 28 Years Later is the rarest of infected beasts. Unbound by the contrived reiterative sentimentality of the requel, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland return to the franchise they started with 28 Days Later (2002)  and inject new blood and pathos into the saturated zombie genre. 

28 Years Later tells the story of Spike (Alfie Williams in an exceptional feature film debut), a 12-year-old living on Holy Island, off England’s North-East coast. While he worries for his sick mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), deems him ready for his first hunt on land. This rite of passage equally initiates the viewer into Boyle’s at once highly stylised and naturalistic horror. The effects are practical, and the performances are grounded—but the brutal kills get instant replays. Filming primarily on iPhones, Anthony Dod Mantle’s cinematography is counterbalanced by Jon Harris’ scrappy editing to ensure we feel the full force of the violence. It’s a bold visual language that fittingly updates the low-fi intimacy of the original.

A far cry from the dynamic of a grumpy, grieving dad whose heart is slowly warmed by a rambunctious surrogate daughter (it’s hard not to think of The Last of Us when discussing a zombie film), Spike and Jamie’s dynamic is a nuanced and refreshing exploration of masculinity. While still displaying some affection, Jamie is mostly curt and strict with his son, which seems reasonable given that he has to prepare him for a dangerous, violent world. But Spike grows uncomfortable when, at a party to welcome them home, Jamie calls him a “giant killer”, embellishing the details of their trip and leaving out any mention of Spike’s fear and failures. The next morning, a confrontation reveals the full extent of the damage caused by Jamie’s macho facade—tied with the desire to construct a similar facade for his son—and his unwillingness to emotionally address the fact that Isla is slowly dying. In a dissection of manhood that is much more compelling than Garland’s work on Men, it is ultimately Jamie’s failure as a father that sets the plot in motion, prompting Spike to sneak off and take his mother to the mainland in search of a doctor.

What follows is a film unlike any blockbuster today. Abandoning the London setting and infused instead with a British folk horror flavour, 28 Years Later is a thrill ride marked by left-field turns, surprising moments of comedy, and poignant scenes that slow everything down without losing any momentum. By centring Spike’s relationships with his father and mother (Taylor-Johnson and Comer are magnetic as ever) while also considering Britain’s history of violence (touching on everything from World War I to Jimmy Saville), the film is both deeply personal and sensitive to the country’s collective trauma and imperialist past. Boyle and Garland also speak to the current sociopolitical climate, with the reality of a quarantined UK effectively making the film Brexit horror.

There is a bizarre absence of people of colour in 28 Years Later (who only play zombies and do not figure at all in the island community), something that I hope is remedied in the sequel. As for other criticisms of what has proven to be quite a divisive movie, I will readily leap to its defence. In response to complaints of tonal inconsistency, the film’s ability to juggle diverse storylines and styles is what makes it so compelling. Never is this more true in the bonkers ending (spoiler alert) where Spike meets a crew of ninjas—led by Jack O’Connell with his second villainous role in a hit horror film this year—with outfits inspired by the Teletubbies and Jimmy Saville. It’s an undeniably off-kilter ending, but it points to the violence of misplaced British nostalgia, promising an exciting sequel in next year’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.