First 28 Years Later trailer reminds us that, boy, 28 Days Later sure was influential
Skull piles, zombie nudists and… Teletubbies?
The first trailer for 28 Years Later has landed — and it’s a brooding, tense reminder of why this franchise revival is so exciting.
Director Danny Boyle’s return to zombie land is looking great — as the name suggests, it’s set 28 years after the original undead thriller, showing a world that, having come to terms with the shambling horrors created by the ‘Rage’ virus, is now having to face the epidemic’s virulent return.
Boyle jumps back into the director’s seat 22 years after the original film’s release, just the 6 years shy of the title’s 28 year wait, with this third entry into the series following 2007’s 28 Weeks Later sequel, which was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo.
Boyle is again joined by Alex Garland (Civil War, Dredd, Annihilation), the original film’s writer, back here on writing duties.
It’s a pretty bleak trailer, but certainly an exciting one — a metronomic spoken word verse rolls in the background as we see a Teletubbies TV viewing session rudely interrupted by a rabble of zombies to the screams of frightened children.
Stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes pop up, both armed and skirting through the English countryside, filled with piles of skulls and the glimpse of zombie nudists. And is that Cillian Murphy, the first film’s star, zombiefied in a field?
… That might be a bit of a reach — Murphy’s exquisite jawline unfairly mistaken for a gaunt corpse. But that might be just the sort of surprise Boyle will need to throw in to keep viewers on their toes this time around.
That’s because the director has quite the challenge ahead of him with 28 Years Later. His straight-faced and quite-British take on the zombie movie with 28 Days Later was a revelation – a desolated London, the desperate and terrifying survival instincts of humans just as dangerous as their rotting counterparts.
It was incredibly influential — perhaps too much so for Boyle’s purposes here. The Last of Us, The Walking Dead — all followed in its wake, taking many cues from Boyle’s film.
As such, there’s a sense of familiarity among the dread on show here. Boyle will need to dig deep to escape the orbit of the media his own original film inspired. But if anyone can manage it, it’s Boyle.
