28 Years Later Scared Me, But It Wasn't Just The Zombies

Like its predecessors, 28 Years Later is a scary movie. One of the most anticipated releases on the 2025 movie schedule has the same sense of dread that director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland brought to 28 Days Later. The zombies are, once again, some of the scariest zombies you’ll ever see on film, and the hopelessness is palpable. The zombies weren’t the only thing that scared me, though. The lack of compassion by the other countries in the world is just as scary.

Spoilers ahead if you haven't seen 28 Years Later!

Great Britain Is Left All Alone To Fend For Itself

Very quickly, it is established that in the 28 years since the Rage Virus was unleashed on the British public, the island has been completely quarantined by the rest of the world. No one is allowed to leave, and the shores of Britain are patrolled by various navies from around Europe. The people who are still alive on the island are completely on their own.

Some, like the main characters, are living in relative peace on a small island off the coast of northern England, having formed a small community protected from the dangers on the mainland. Others, we learn, are living almost like savages among the ruins of the United Kingdom. The commonality here is that no one is helping anyone in the country. Like, at all. That is incredibly disturbing to me.

I Understand Why The Rest Of The World Cut Them Off… But…

In the first sequel in the franchise, 28 Weeks Later, which may or may not be canon, the last bit of info we learned is that Rage has reached continental Europe. In 28 Years Later, we’re updated and find out that the countries on the continent successfully fought the virus off and stopped mass infection. That’s wonderful, of course. But what came next is far from wonderful.

In 28 Weeks Later, the United States and NATO are helping the survivors in the United Kingdom, then nearly 3 decades later, there is no help at all. Not even air drops of food or medicine, or supplies. Just nothing. The survivors are basically left for dead. I understand the need for a serious and hard quarantine, but no help at all? Not even the bare minimum to help those who are still alive?

The Other Countries Of The World Could Do Something!

The people left on the mainland have seemingly lost their humanity on some level. The people in the community off the coast are doing whatever they can to keep theirs, but as Isla (Jodie Comer) faces a mysterious illness eventually diagnosed as cancer, she can’t even get medicine to help.

It’s a level of ambivalence and coldness that really upsets me. Where is the humanity from those not facing the infected? It seems to me that supplies could be sent to the wasteland without risking lives or a spread of the virus, so why isn’t anyone helping at all?

That lack of humanity is just as disturbing, if not more so, than naked zombies, Alpha zombies, pregnant zombies, or bone collectors. Maybe in the next installment, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, coming next year, we’ll see more help, but I’m not getting my hopes up.