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In the years following 2002\u2019s indie horror hit 28 Days Later<\/em>, the bold Scottish director Danny Boyle<\/strong> shifted into something like the mainstream, winning an Oscar for 2008\u2019s feel-good modern epic Slumdog Millionaire<\/em> and making films about Steve Jobs<\/a> and (sort of) the Beatles<\/a>. It\u2019s a pleasure, then, to see him back in the grittier climes of a zombie apocalypse in his new film, 28 Years Later<\/em> (in theaters June 20). Grim and strange, 28 Years Later<\/em> finds Boyle once again following the irregular rhythms of his brain.<\/p>\n 28 Years Later<\/em> reunites Boyle with 28 Days<\/em> Later<\/em> screenwriter Alex Garland<\/strong>, who has himself<\/a> been on a curious<\/a> filmmaking journey<\/a> over the last few decades<\/a>. Together they\u2019ve made a film that tips the franchise (there was a sequel, 28 Weeks Later<\/em>, in 2007) into the surreal and the metaphysical, an alarming depiction of a civilization\u2019s wary survival.<\/p>\n Alfie Williams<\/strong> plays Spike, a 12-year-old boy who\u2019s grown up on an island largely sheltered from the rage-infected cannibals who ravaged most of the isle of Britain three decades prior. His community is merry and self-sufficient, with a brave few occasionally venturing to the mainland for timber and other supplies via a narrow causeway. Toughness is prized among these hardscrabble people, and Spike is eager to prove his mettle by traveling with his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson<\/strong>), to a vast and perilous landscape he\u2019s only imagined. There he will make his first kill of an infected, a bar mitzvah by blood.<\/p>\n To highlight the atavistic quality of this tradition, Boyle intercuts scenes of Spike and Jamie embarking on their quest with footage from old movies set in medieval times. Arrows are loosed into the sky just as Spike trains with his own bow; men march toward battle as father and son make their way into the dangerous unknown. At another point in the film, Boyle makes direct allusion to perhaps the most famous shot from Ingmar Bergman\u2019s dark ages fantasy The Seventh Seal<\/em>, men silhouetted in a line as they walk the crest of a hill. A new Black Death has befallen Britain, and all the old ways have come burbling back up through the mud.<\/p>\n The film reaches even further back into history: as Spike and Jamie trek further inland, they encounter sacrificial tableaux deep in the woods, evidence of ominous ritual. Perhaps some mad, warped version of paganism has reclaimed the land. Modernity can still be glimpsed on the horizon in the form of French warships, patrolling the seas to maintain Britain\u2019s quarantine. And just as Spike\u2019s isolated people appear to have regressed, others are maybe evolving. The infected display some habit of social organization, a hoary trope in zombie movies that is, frankly, never my favorite plot development. But Boyle and Garland at least present it in an interesting way, half horrific and half comedic. Brutal and wily as at least one infected has become, he\u2019s also a little funny.<\/p>\n The film takes other big swings, ones involving Spike\u2019s ailing mother, Isla (Jodie Comer<\/strong>), and a mysterious loner played by Ralph Fiennes<\/strong>. Three quarters of the way through, 28 Years Later<\/em> slows the horror to become a rumination on death\u2019s inevitability and life\u2019s carrying on even in the grips of calamity. It\u2019s poignant in an odd way, positioned as it is in what is ostensibly a horror film. Really, Boyle\u2019s film is more post-apocalyptic anthropology than anything else, an alluring peer into a near future in which humanity is at a fraught crossroads.<\/p>\n Which isn\u2019t to say that the film isn\u2019t frightening. There are myriad unbearably tense and disturbing scenes, steeped in the impossible dread of being stuck somewhere far from safety, surrounded by unseen things lurking in the shadows. Boyle mixes the frenzied camerawork of the first film with a sinister stillness\u2014perhaps the scariest single image in the movie is a wide shot of a lone, distant figure standing at the edge of a field. That terror is offset by disarming beauty: scenes saturated with bucolic color, overgrown ruins at the center of stunning vistas. 28 Years Later<\/em> is an effective fusing of Boyle\u2019s many signature sensibilities, complemented by the addition of something new: a wearier, elder perspective on chaos and entropy.<\/p>\n Whether 28 Years Later<\/em> is a satisfying franchise followup, 18 years after the last entry, will have to be decided by the beholder. I found myself confused by the film\u2019s unexpected tone, but also captivated by it. Knowing that another film in the series has already been shot goes a long way toward softening the blunt impact of the film\u2019s sudden, ambiguous ending. 28 Years Later<\/em> is, ultimately, only half of a longer saga: the next installment, The Bone Temple<\/em> (that title will make sense once you\u2019ve seen Years Later<\/em>), will be out sometime next year. It\u2019s not directed by Boyle, though Garland wrote the screenplay.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll have to see how director Nia DaCosta<\/strong> can complete their vision. What she\u2019s got to work off of is erratic but arresting, an alteration of the post-9\/11 paranoia of 28 Days Later<\/em> to better fit the mutated fear and anxiety of our own troubling era. Something wicked has already come and now we\u2019re left to deal with it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n