28 YEARS LATER (2025)

Wat da fuq?

Seeing as how I’m both the most well-respected and highest paid movie critic in the known Universe, I decided to do my due diligence and revisit the first two films in the “28 Days Later” series before watching this new installment. And yep, they’re both still a 5/10 at best.

Alright, so let’s get to it: Twenty-eight years after the original outbreak of the Rage Virus, a 12-year-old boy, Spike (I’m guessing his parents were Buffy fans), lives with his family on a small British island that’s protected by the tides coming in and out, creating a natural barrier from the mainland Infected. There’s a small, fenced community on the island and when the children (boys only, no girls?) turn 15 they have a coming-of-age ritual where they go to the mainland, kill a zombie and teabag it or something. I don’t know, my brain started drifting when we’re told that the boy is only 12. Like, what the fuck? Why exactly is this dude going out three goddamn years early for? It’s like the movie created its own problem and never even explained it. (Or maybe it did and I missed it during one of my multiple, protracted yawning sessions.) Some townfolk say that Spike is too young, the dad says nope he’s old enough. Then once they get out of the gate, ol’ Spike starts fucking shit up left and right and even gets a few people killed!

Also, don’t even get me started on the goddamn doctor drugging the one zombie and letting him go, only to be bounced up and down like a goddamn Harlem Globetrotter basketball later on by the same exact zombie! Is this zombie your pet or something? Kill the motherfucker!

I don’t know. I was honestly looking forward to this film because I was expecting some badass zombie action, but instead I got weird camera effects, lens flares flying all over the joint and zombies treated more like annoying pests than deadly threats. I wanted to like 28 YEARS LATER, but by time it was over I wanted to parkour my 4K disc through a fucking window.

Part 1 - 28 Days Later... (2002)
Part 2 - 28 Weeks Later (2007)
Part 4 - 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

28 DAYS LATER... (2002)

28% action. 90% talking. 2% me yawning loudly.

Some caveman-looking dickneck wakes up in the hospital ("Day of the Triffids"-style), 28 days after an virus of "Rage" breaks out. Rage makes people act like it's 6 AM on Black Friday all the time! Dickneck crawls out of bed and wanders around for a long time. Finally some of the infected attack him, but he's saved by two other survivors. Stuff happens.  Most of it's talking.

I was not a fan of this movie. Fanboys seem to love it and rub their crotches furiously at the mere mention of it's holy name, but I found the entire thing to look low-budget and way too overstylized with the grainy film and the sped up frame rate when the infected were onscreen. I didn't hate the movie, just found it boring and average. It's not until the very end of the movie that there's an action scene that last for longer than just a few seconds. Everything up until that point was just some asshole twitching and screaming then getting killed. Hell, the remake of THE CRAZIES had more action!

There's really no reason explaining why I thought this movie was weak, but during this movie I never felt any of the claustrophobia or complete sense of isolation and doom like I did with the original DAWN OF THE DEAD or Brian Keene's "The Rising" books or playing various zombie video games.

Worth watching, but it's nothing to write home about that's for sure. Moderate low-budget violence, some blood, GY!BE on the soundtrack, zero doom, zero tits, zero logic (if the infection is caused by bodily fluid transference then I'd damn sure be wearing safety glasses and a mouth cover at all times), happy music, people laughing, one shot that is directly lifted from a newspaper ad for THE EXORCIST,  a scene of chimpanzees being upset (that really bummed me out), purposely grainy picture, towards the end there was glimpses of the violence I had wanted to see but even then it cut away too soon.

Part 2 - 28 Weeks Later (2007)
Part 3 - 28 Years Later (2025)
Part 4 - 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

 Person middle of screen walking away on sidewalk.

 Human on left side throwing trash bag into dumpster.

 Cameraman extremely visible over to right.

Yeah, you're catch a lot of rain water in that laundry basket.