The following contains spoilers for 28 Years Later
One of the biggest twists in 28 Years Later was done by one of horror’s most foundational creators twenty years ago. 28 Years Later is a unique entry in the horror genre, building off the legacy of its previous films and the zombie sub-genre as a whole to tell a surprisingly quiet story about loss and life.
One of the best ways it does this is with Samson, an Infected who is evolving into something more dangerous (and human). It’s a compelling concept that plays well into the film’s overarching themes. It’s also a twist that’s been done before, with an underrated film by one of horror’s most iconic directors doing something very similar two decades ago.
28 Years Later’s Samson And Land Of The Dead’s Big Daddy Are Really Similar
One of the most intriguing elements of 28 Years Later is Samson, whose evolution as a Rage Virus-infectee feels thematically similar to Big Daddy in George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead. In the wilds of the United Kingdom of 28 Years Later, the Infected are dangerous threats. However, most of them pale in comparison to something like Samson.
One of the Alphas, Samson, is an Infected whose body has been amplified by the Rage Virus. This gives him a massive burst in strength and speed, as well as a certain amount of control over other Infected. Introduced later in the film, Samson seems to have even moved beyond those advantages to gain a limited but clear intellect.
Samson is implied to have also developed a certain amount of emotional intelligence, with the implication that he has regained enough humanity to mourn his mate and chase after what may be their child. It’s a startling discovery for the audience within the context of the film, but it touches on a concept that’s been done elsewhere in previous films.
The undead regaining a semblance of humanity and intellect has been explored in other films and shows, such as Warm Bodies and Wednesday. However, there are some key similarities between Samson and Big Daddy, the primary zombie character from Land of the Dead.
The fourth entry in George A. Romero’s foundational zombie franchise, Land of the Dead introduced Big Daddy as the nominal leader of the zombie horde. While the zombies in Day of the Dead were being studied for their potential to develop intelligence, Big Daddy became a uniquely clever leader.
Big Daddy regains enough of his faculties to operate gas pumps and machine guns, and even figures out how his undead attributes could be best used in his attack on humanity. While Samson doesn’t quite reach that level of problem-solving, they both represent similar things in a movie about society trying to move past an undead apocalypse.
Why Big Daddy And Samson Are So Compelling
Samson and Big Daddy are both examples of the typically mindless threats of his horror sub-genre evolving into a new form, with a startlingly human sense of intellect and — more distressingly — emotion. The most intriguing elements of Samson in 28 Years Later are his minor shows of emotion, such as seemingly mourning his dead mate.
It’s a humanizing moment, especially right on the heels of the character grabbing Erik and ripping his head off with his bare hands. It gives a character infected with the Rage Virus a genuine sense of fury, making him all the scarier in the moment. It’s not just an inhuman monster; it’s emotionally lashing out in a brutal, human way.
While Big Daddy has his own sense of anger in Land of the Dead, that movie focuses more on his cold desire for vengeance against Kaufman. However, this sense of emotion in the zombie speaks to an evolution, the endurance of humanity in an undead form that most people wouldn’t call human.
Both of these concepts are similar in a thematic way, raising questions about the undead hordes that audiences have been conditioned to accept as countless deaths for the genre. Because they’re mindless monsters in rotting human forms, the undead can typically be guilt-free cannon fodder in films, TV shows, and video games.
By giving them intelligence and emotion, Samson and Big Daddy challenge this foundational reality of the zombie sub-genre. It reinforces the film’s questions about humanity’s dark sides and their innate qualities. It’s notable that both Samson and Big Daddy are shown to have some capacity (whether drug-assisted or not) to co-exist with non-infected people.
In theory, they don’t have to be monsters, and yet their new innate nature as Infected or a zombie leads them to become threats. Both Land of the Dead and 28 Years Later use these characters to help comment on the world at large and how people change to survive. Their biggest difference is in the how.
Land of the Dead is a grim social satire, with Big Daddy representing an uprising against the corrupt people who’ve refashioned the surviving world into their personal domain. By contrast, 28 Years Later is more focused on individual characters and stories, with Samson serving as something of a dark foil to Spike and his father Jamie in Spike’s arc.
Both characters are grim reflections of the humanity that has been able to survive in the landscapes of their respective stories, a different side of the “enduring humanity” that is core to this sub-genre. 28 Years Later may apply to a more personal arc, but Samson is the evolution of a clever zombie trope that’s been done before.
