So, there isn’t currently a catchy name for the 28 Days Later film series, and instead, the series (or franchise, if you want to call it that) is named after the 2002 movie that kicked it all off. Maybe describing it as the “28 X Later” series would be a bit clunky, even if it might feel a little more accurate. Oh well. As long as that distinction is out of the way, then things are pretty straightforward. The first one came out in 2002 and was a breath of fresh air for the zombie genre, if it indeed counted as a zombie movie, given the foes here weren’t undead, and were, instead, victims of an outbreak of something called the “Rage Virus.” That sounds like bad news, given the name of the virus, but it was the fact that said virus turned people into the running dead, as opposed to the walking dead, that made it exceptionally scary.
The first 28 Days Later movie came out in 2002 and was a breath of fresh air for the zombie genre, if it indeed counted as a zombie movie.
The first three movies in the series are interesting, given that they each focus on a different set of survivors dealing with the aftermath of the Rage Virus outbreak four weeks after, then 28 weeks later, and then 28 years later (“28 Months Later” was skipped). And now, in 2026, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple serves as a much more direct sequel to at least one of the movies that came before, bringing back certain characters and bucking the trend of every movie being about different people. So, that all suggests the series is only going to grow/accelerate, and continually spread throughout multiplexes more and more like a virus itself. That’s good news if you like zombie flicks, and particularly good news if you like this kind of speedier, in-your-face, and uneasy zombie flick. The three movies that make up this series to date are ranked below, starting with the good and ending with the great (so far, all of them have proven worth watching).
4
’28 Weeks Later’ (2007)
Even if it’s the weakest film out of the 28 Days Later series to date, 28 Weeks Later still has more good than bad, and that’s more than you can say about a great many sequels out there. It does escalate things, featuring more action and spectacle than the first movie, which does admittedly make it a little less scary… but it’s not quite as focused on horror, so if you can get on board with this being more of a thriller/action movie, then there’s entertainment value to be had here. And, if you do want horror, then at least the highly regarded opening sequence has your back. 28 Weeks Later gets off to a great start, or, put a little more pessimistically, it plays its best cards too early. It feels a bit like a really good short film that’s then followed by a noticeably less impressive feature film.
The problem with most of 28 Weeks Later is that so much of the plot only unfolds because some characters do some really dumb things. If you watch a good many horror movies, you can probably put up with characters doing such things to some extent, but 28 Weeks Later pushes the believability of it all a bit too far, especially because it’s not just the two kids at the film’s center who do some truly questionable things. It’s an absurd story, at times, seeing the virus breaking out again because of incompetence more than anything else (well, a little bad luck, too), and 28 Weeks Later takes itself pretty seriously. So, that’s the main obstacle. Otherwise, the movie is entertaining and delivers a good many exciting scenes alongside some rather unrelenting bleakness. That caveat is certainly there, and worth acknowledging, but the sometimes contrived plot only weakens the movie overall, rather than outright destroying any chance of it being engaging.
3
’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ (2026)
There was very little time to wait for another 28 X Later film, following 28 Years Later. It’s almost 28 weeks later that a new one came out, funnily enough… well, probably more like 24 or 25 weeks. But close enough. Half a year. Narratively, it picks up what might well be 28 minutes later. There’s a strange conclusion found in 28 Years Later, but 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple ends up doing interesting things with where that one left off. There’s a gang of very proficient zombie killers who all go by the name Jimmy, and they model themselves after Jimmy Savile (his whole story is not the greatest of rabbit holes to go down, but if you’re a cat and don’t mind being killed by curiosity, knock yourself out). They’re clearly unstable, as depicted in 28 Years Later, but then once you understand them a little better, they become far more terrifying, and not nearly as goofy or weird as that ending to the previous film might’ve suggested. Some stuff that goes down here, in terms of the violence perpetrated by the cult of Jimmys, is genuinely hard to watch.
And then also, in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, you get more stuff going on with Ralph Fiennes’s character, who was a highlight of 28 Years Later, and does some interesting (and more peaceful) things here, discovering certain things about the infected that might well be important to – or relevant in – future installments. Speaking of infected, this film probably has them play the smallest role in one of the movies in this series to date, but their presence isn’t missed too much when you’ve got some human villains that are quite a bit more terrifying than even most rage-filled of the infected tend to be. There’s a good conclusion built to here as well, even if you do start to feel some steam running out in the back half of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Once it concludes in an admittedly dramatic – albeit somewhat sudden – way, it’s right on to teasing the next film. And it’s not surprising, really, how it goes about teasing things, but it’s still exciting, in any event. If Alex Garland is writing it, and Danny Boyle is returning to the director’s chair, then it could make for a good conclusion to this whole 28 Years trilogy (though Nia DaCosta’s direction here was more than solid, albeit not as adventurous – nor as garish – as Boyle’s in the previous film).
2
’28 Years Later’ (2025)
Anticipation for 28 Years Later was particularly high, since it came out close to 20 years on from the second movie, and because it saw the writer/director duo of the first movie reuniting: Alex Garland as writer, and Danny Boyle as director (and co-writer, it should be added). Here, it feels like the ending of 28 Weeks Later was either ignored or hand-waved away, because 28 Years Later does feel more in line with 28 Days Later… but also not entirely, given it’s about a different bunch of characters and, as the title spells out, takes place almost three decades on from the initial outbreak. The drastically changed world is the most intriguing and exciting thing about 28 Years Later. The infected have evolved, and there are now different variants of them, which means different scenes can be terrifying/gross/upsetting for different reasons. Some infected are extremely strong and resilient, while others are large, slow, and stealthy, and then, like in the first two movies, some are just very angry and very fast.
28 Years Later makes some wild decisions stylistically, but the same can be said about the first movie, in terms of how that one looked and was edited, too. The unusual style-related decisions usually pay off, but not all the narrative-related ideas do (without saying what happens, the set-up for the next movie is awkwardly done… maybe intentionally so, but it’s still very strange and jarring to watch play out). Also, it’s a movie of two distinct halves, prologue and epilogue aside, and some people are probably going to be keener on the first half than the slower and more drama-heavy second half, even if both work together quite well to tell something of a coming-of-age story. Put simply, and without any further spoilers, it’s an uneven movie, and it’s not a slam-dunk. However, it does more than enough things right, and the best sequences here make the film worth watching. Also, if you can somehow watch this and leave before the final three or four minutes happen, then you might well come away feeling as though 28 Years Later was of a similar quality to the first movie. Yes, the ending is that stupid. Words should not be minced here… but at the very least, it didn’t suggest
1
’28 Days Later’ (2002)
Yeah, probably predictable, but 28 Days Later is the best movie in the series it ultimately kicked off. This film did something new with the zombie sub-genre; not that zombies were boring, or that even now, slow zombies don’t have their place, but 28 Days Later just being like, “Yeah, let’s do our own thing and get weird with it,” ultimately helped it stand out. And it still stands out, even if the core story here is rather simple. A man wakes up from a coma and finds the world has completely changed in the four weeks he’s been out. He narrowly avoids death once he staggers outside, and eventually falls in with a few other survivors who all have to band together to travel to some kind of refuge; any place where the infected might not be an immediate danger.
It’s a movie that gets heavy and sad at times, but there are also moments of hope – and even small snippets of levity – to be found in 28 Days Later. It covers a lot of ground emotionally, and it has a unique look to it that still feels unsettling, eerie, and distinctly gritty/grounded. It’s a grimy and more relentless sort of zombie film, but it also manages to slow down in parts without ever feeling boring. It’s not quite a perfect horror movie, but it’s also the hardest to find glaring faults with (well… there is one weak performance out of those in the main cast – sorry – and you’ll know it when you see it; that’s probably the most significant flaw). But stylistically, visually, and emotionally, 28 Days Later still impresses to this day, and it’s got a killer soundtrack, too.
