David Farnor | On 23, Jun 2025

“What about the government?” “There’s no government.” “Of course there’s a government! There’s always a government.” Those are the words of Jim (Cillian Murphy) as he emerges from hospital into a post-apocalyptic world. Jim, a bike courier taking a package from Farringdon, got hit by a car, only to end up in a coma in hospital. When he wakes up, he’s greeted by an eerily empty London – and a what-if that stretches far beyond the city’s skyscrapers. So begins 28 Days Later, Danny Boyle’s remarkable, still-terrifying horror.

The uncanny, unsettling opening has become an iconic sequence in its own right, as Jim stumbles from one landmark to the next with not a person in sight. Such a simple stunt – filmed in the early hours of the morning – turned a familiar place into a desolate, alien hellscape. On the wall of a church he finds himself in is written the words “the end is extremely f*cking nigh”. Shaun of the Dead, this ain’t.

Revisiting the film more than 20 years on, it’s a hauntingly accurate depiction of the capital – and many other UK cities – during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. That gives the film’s depiction of a virus’ rapid spread an authentic bite that’s all the more chilling – it sits alongside Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion as a movie that captures just how quickly disease can be communicated. It’s all the more harrowing because it occurs in the brief black screen before the title card appears: 28 Days Later…

The source of the virus is a medical laboratory where apes have been tested upon – a brutal, upsetting prologue shows us one animal strapped to a table watching TV screens playing out riot scenes and other displays of anger. There’s no subtlety in the name of the virus – Rage – as a metaphor for the way that society can so easily be consumed by anger in the right (or wrong) conditions).

That scene spells out for us that this isn’t really about solving the origins of the outbreak: it’s about navigating the horror of the aftermath, where the real monsters are people. This is the kind of territory that will be familiar to The Walking Dead viewers, but Danny Boyle’s direction ensures that this stands vividly out from the crowd.

First, the decision to steer away from traditional zombies is crucial: the infected here (nobody comes back to life; they catch Rage within 20 seconds if they consume contaminated blood) sprint with an unnerving desperation that’s topped only by their physical speed. Second, the decision to shoot on video, with DoP Anthony Dod Mantle crafting something so low-res that it feels like we’re watching VHS documentary footage dug up from the rubble of a long-destroyed civilisation – where some horror movies date unintentionally, 28 Days Later leans into that risk and instead emerges as something fresh and nasty in its immediate gore. Third, the economy of the storytelling is impeccable, with no unnecessary dialogue or overlong set pieces: everything is cut down to the very minimum amount of time, scope and money, giving events a relentless, riveting momentum that’s grounded in practical reality.

The cast are excellent, with Cillian Murphy anchoring us throughout the chaos, ranging from stoic and determined to scared and broken. He’s supported well by Noah Huntley and Naomie Harris as fellow survivors Mark and Selena, Brendan Gleeson as an optimistic cab driver, Frank, whose cheery persona barely conceals that he knows he’s putting on a front.

It’s Christopher Eccleston, though, who really lingers in the memory as army chief Henry West, who is in charge of what might be the lost hope of safety and salvation. His presence, rooted in order and hierarchy, is at once a reminder of what went before and a reminder that nothing really changes – it doesn’t take much for humans to turn on one another, particularly when it comes to self-preservation and power. There might not be a government in this riveting, living nightmare, but 28 Days Later is a bitingly political horror that sinks its teeth into humanity’s deep-running vein of exploitation and injustice.

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