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Back in 2002 Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s 28 Days Later pretty much reinvented the zombie genre. They had kind of collaborated on The Beach two years earlier when Boyle and writer John Hodge adapted Garland’s novel but this was their first full partnership and it took some of the ideas already established around this famous on screen monster but told a very different story, moving right away from the supernatural and slow lumbering hangry creatures of George A. Romero and other horror filmmakers like him. 

Since then we have had a range of movies that have also played with the conventions of the ‘undead’ to brilliant effect, such as Train to Busan, The Girl With All the Gifts, One Cut of the Dead, Warm Bodies, Cargo and The Cured, but these guys started it. Romero’s version of the old shambling biters is now largely left appearing in comedies and spoofs like Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead.

Now returning to this series (actually only twenty three years later), they have done something totally different once again. Their first story was heavily focused on character and the same is true here but around this is a fresh, bold, shocking and unpredictable thriller. It has to be said that 2007’s sequel 28 Weeks Later, which neither Boyle, Garland or any of the original cast were involved in, was good too, raising the stakes and the scale effectively, but the characterisation was probably what let it down. Here they focus on maybe four or five players and each one of them is complex, flawed and totally captivating. You will want to follow them to extremes and you do.

This isn’t to say this movie only has a small cast. We also get some great sequences of what the zombie pandemic has done to big communities. The main one of these is a group gathered on an isolated Northumbrian island, another is the infected population themselves and the first we meet is a rural town we see ransacked in a superb cold open than darkly involves a group of scared children, their helpless parents and surprisingly some icons of UK preschool TV. 

When the film concentrates on individuals or small groups though, this is where it is strongest. I don’t want to give two much away but the movie delivers both great zombie action and beautiful scenes of human connection, and is by turns exciting, tense, funny and utterly heartbreaking. Oh, and it’s grimy and brutal too, you should know that going in. It is rated 15 but this indicates a sea change at the BBFC because there is plenty in here that would have certainly lead to a higher certification only a few years ago. All of this fits perfectly into the sophisticated narrative though and as a whole the film, with its bold cutting, masterful shot composition and wonderful soundtrack, is brilliant. All of those central performances are also excellent. 

There has been some discussion around the final moments of the movie and there is no denying it throws one hell of a curveball. I’d heard this going in but whatever I expected it wasn’t what we got. Personally I was more than happy to go with it though. It actually deepens what has come before and pays off on a few earlier events. Consider the film’s message about a nation’s, our Nation’s, arrested development, along with the nature of the protagonist and how he may view things, and it all fits. Besides, there’s another instalment, The Bone Temple, coming next year so let’s wait for the bigger picture. 

So, just over two decades ago 28 Days Later showed Danny Boyle and Alex Garland working at the top of their game. Their game has moved on considerably since then though, especially for Garland who has become a director himself giving us some of the best movies of the last ten years or so. Still, this film absolutely does it again. It is exciting to see two such legends of contemporary British Cinema working together again and the result is magnificent.