Looking forward to watching Danny Boyle’s highly anticipated 28 Days Later in cinemas but feeling a bit nervous? Not to worry, even the most hardened horror film lovers sometimes need a plot summary to warn them about the scary bits.
28 Years Later has plenty of jump scares and gore. If you don’t like watching people and animals having their heads and spines ripped clean off of their bodies, this may be a skip for you.
Gallery: Stars attend 28 Years Later world premiere in Leicester Square
For fans desperate to learn more about the state of the UK decades after the outbreak we first encountered in 28 Days Later — and the new mutations of the Rage Virus — there’s a lot of plot from writer Alex Garland to pack into its one hour and 50 minute run time.
Spoilers ahead!!
The film cold opens on the Teletubbies on the day of the virus outbreak. As scared children watch Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Lala and Po have a Teletubby Hug, Rage Virus Infected zombies storm a house in the Scottish Highlands. What follows is a lot of screaming, biting and vomiting blood, and the only survivor is a young boy named Jimmy who flees to a nearby church.
There he finds a priest, who is also his actual father. But instead of escaping, the mad-eyed priest tells his son the outbreak is judgement day. He gives his son his golden cross and allows the horde of Infected smashing through the stained glass windows to welcome him to the congregation of the zombie plague. Jimmy hides in the crypt and survives.
Fast forward to – title card – 28 Years Later. Mainland Europe has contained the virus, but the UK has been put into quarantine. The waters are patrolled by NATO military ships and anyone who puts a toe on the island is doomed to stay. Survivors have been left to their own devices.
Spike (Alfie Williams) wakes up to his dad Jamie (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) cooking a rare treat of bacon in honour of his ceremonial first trip to the mainland. His family live in an isolated low-tech community on Holy Island, aka Lindisfarne, the tidal island off the coast of the north east of England. His mother, Isla (Jodie Comer), is sick in bed with a mystery illness that appears to be getting worse.
The town turns out to wish Spike well on his journey, including a young woman who shares a longing look with Jamie. Their community leader warns Spike that there will be no rescue once he reaches the mainland, as they’ve lost too many people. She also chides Jamie for taking Spike out when he’s just 12, as they usually wait until their children are at least 14 for this event.
Jamie brushes off their concerns and father and son set out across the tidal causeway. Together they run through the rules. Once the tide rises, there’s no getting back to Holy Island. If you try to swim, a current will pull you out to sea. The only weapons they have are knives, bows and arrows.
Spike’s mission, it soon becomes apparent, is to make his first kill of an infected. “Head and heart” is their community’s mantra — where to aim to kill an infected. First they spot a “Slow-low”, a new variant of Rage-infected humans that have mutated to be horrifying in a whole new way. Large, grey and covered in mould and slime, they mostly kitten crawl along the floor slurping up worms.
Spike manages to get a perfect shot in his target's neck, unleashing a gory arterial spray, but another Slow-low has snuck up behind the pair. Jamie manages to dispatch it, but hesitates to shoot at a child-sized Slow-low that watches them through the trees.
Buoyed by Spike’s success, Jamie leads them further into the mainland. They witness a thundering herd of deer pass them by — nature has reclaimed England. He brings Spike to an abandoned house to teach him about looting for supplies, and his son is baffled when he finds a frisbee.
Then they make a gruesome discovery. Someone (someone who is still alive!) has been strung up by their ankles in one of the rooms, blood dripping into a bag tied over their head and letters carved into their torso. Letters that look like they might spell out J-I-M-M-Y.
Jamie warns Spike that people on the Mainland are strange before instructing him to shoot them — they’re clearly Infected and beginning to turn. Spike almost bottles it, only managing to shoot once the Infected has wriggled free.
Spike would clearly like to go home now, but Jamie pushes them onwards. They discover a disembowelled deer, and Jamie excitedly tells Spike that this means that the “fast ones” are around. His excitement suddenly turns to fear when they spot a deer’s head and spine stuck on a branch high in a tree. Something big must have put it there.
As they try to close a clearing, infected start to walk over the brow of a hill — along with a giant. This is what Jamie calls an “Alpha”, a huge infected that seems to lead the others. The Rage Virus, they theorise acts like steroids on some Infected, allowing them to reach much bigger sizes.
The Alpha calls out to the pack and they run down the hill at the humans. These are classic Rage Virus Infected, but 28 years after the outbreak they’re more emaciated and any clothes have rotted off them. Jamie tries to call out battle formations to a panicked Spike, who can’t get any shots off out of fear.
Father and son manage to make it back to the house, making it into the attic at the last moment. The remaining infected shriek in frustration, as the Alpha watches on from the hill. Jamie says they’ll have to spend the night and make it back the next time the tide goes out. Spike spots a fire burning further into the mainland, but Jamie claims he doesn’t know who or what it might be. Back on Holy Island, the community sets out a welcome party in a hall.
Spike has strange nightmares that turn into a new horror — the house is falling down around them. They manage to get out, but are aware the noise will have alerted the infected. Making it back to the causeway, they find the tide is just low enough they can run across. But they’re unaware the Alpha from earlier is in pursuit.
The aurora borealis is shining overhead as Jamie begins to regale Spike with their success. But a flock of startled birds alerts them that the Alpha is sprinting towards them. They manage to alert the watch tower as they run, and the community hustles to launch a volley of arrows at the Alpha. Finally a flaming bolt manages to take him down just as Jamie and Spike get to the gate and prove they’re not infected.
During the drunken celebration of Spike’s return, he becomes uncomfortable with how his father is exaggerating his success on the mainland while people keep forcing beer on him. After slipping out to be sick, he notices his father sneaking off with the woman from earlier and follows them. After witnessing them having sex in some old fortifications, Spike goes home to check on his mum and finds family friend Sam (Christopher Fulford) minding the house.
Spike unburdens himself to Sam, how he was too frightened to shoot most of the infected on the mainland, how he feels his father is lying to him about everything. Sam lets slip they know who lives by the fire — Dr Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a GP who has gone mad. Spike is furious that no one has sought this doctor’s help for Isla’s illness.
When a still-drunk Jamie returns the next morning, Spike confronts him about his affair and Dr Kelson. Jamie admits he saw the doctor once, before Spike was born, after the outbreak. He had collected and laid out corpses, still dressed in his scrubs, and was methodically cremating the remains. Disturbed by the sight — and that Dr Kelson appeared to be casually waving them over — he vowed to never go back.
A furious Spike tells his father to leave him and Isla alone. As they argue, Spike pulls his flick knife on Jamie. Jamie grabs it and disarms him, before handing it back and punching a wall as he leaves. Jamie distracts the gate guards by setting fire to the supplies shed and sneaking out the gate with Isla, determined to get her to Dr Kelson.
Once Isla realises they are on the mainland and without Jamie she becomes distressed, but Spike comforts her and persuades her to let him guide her to the doctor. She has brief moments of lucidity, but is becoming increasingly confused and suffering nosebleeds. They spend the night in a ruined abbey, with Spike keeping watch. As he falls asleep, a Slow-low crawls along the cloisters towards him to suck up his shoelace like a worm, before preparing to strike.
But when Spike wakes up it’s morning and the Slow-low is dead. Isla doesn’t remember what happened, but a flashback reveals she woke up and bagged the Infected with a tarpaulin as it prepared to bite Spike, repeatedly bashing its head against an altar.
Meanwhile somewhere else on the coast, a group of soldiers flee a pack of Infected and another Alpha that chases them down into a tunnel. The surviving soldiers attempt to move through the tunnel with their headlamps, but the Alpha sneaks up and tears them apart. Only one of the soldiers manages to escape. Elsewhere a group of Infected gather at a river and appear to attempt to wash themselves, including a heavily pregnant female.
Spike and Isla continue their journey down the mainland. As they spot the Angel of the North, Isla slips into reminiscing about her own father telling her about it. Spike spots an emaciated Infected sneaking up on them and shoots him with his bow and arrow. As more Infected arrive, they flee towards an abandoned Shell garage (the S has fallen off, in a sinister touch).
Inside the petrol station, gas has evaporated into the air, choking Spike and Isla as Infected swarm in after them. The surviving soldier arrives just in time, shooting down from a ceiling hatch and igniting the Infected. Spike and Isla manage to crawl to safety and meet their rescuer, Erik Sundqvist (Edvin Ryding).
Sundqvist was on a NATO boat that sank and washed his patrol ashore - now he’s stepped onto the UK he is stuck in the quarantine. Despite being furious with the situation he agrees to carry Isla on their journey to Dr Kelson. Spike and Erik try to understand each other, although both have grown up in wildly different worlds. After stopping for a lunch of apples, Isla reveals she can walk again and they continue towards the column of smoke.
Hearing screams, Isla rushes off down an embankment and into an overgrown train carriage. She finds the pregnant Infected in labour and manages to communicate without being attacked, clasping hands to support the birth. Isla washes the baby while the Infected mother falls unconscious.
Spike and Erik arrive, with Erik shooting the mother when it wakes up and starts to attack. Erik threatens Isla if she doesn’t drop the baby, but she refuses. Before Erik can shoot, the Alpha (or what he calls a Berserker) arrives and rips his head from his body. Isla and Spike flee down the train from the Alpha, but just before it catches them Dr Kelson appears and tranquilises it with a blowdart.
Although eccentric and covered in orange iodine, Dr Kelson is welcoming. He has named the Alpha Samson, and learned how to sedate Infected in order to escape them. Leading them back to his home across a river, he shows off his grand Memento Mori (Latin for “remember you must die”)— a forest of totems made of bones with a grand pyramid of skulls in the centre. He’s been tending to the bodies of the dead, Infected and human alike, since the outbreak.
Dr Kelson processes Erik’s skull in his makeshift crematorium, showing Spike how to wash off the remaining flesh and instructing him to add Erik to the bone display. He agrees with them that the baby is not infected with the Rage Virus (perhaps thanks of the placenta), but he suspected the Infected would one day start to reproduce this way. He proceeds to give Isla a diagnosis. She has cancer in her breast and brain, and he cannot cure her.
A distraught Spike pleads with Dr Kelson, but Isla says she suspected as much and apologises to Spike for not telling him sooner. Dr Kelson offers Isla a painless way out, and she signals her assent as she embraces her son. The doctor blowdarts Spike to mildly sedate him, then leads Isla out into the bone sculptures and euthanizes her.
When Spike wakes, Dr Kelson hands him his mother’s skull and tells him to give her the best place. Spike climbs the skull pyramid and places her at the top as the sun rises. Dr Kelson, Spike and the baby are forced to hide from Samson, with Spike darting him with sedatives to free the doctor. Dr Kelson tells him it’s time to go home, so Spike returns to Holy Island with the baby in a shopping basket.
When the islanders wake up they discover the baby at the gate with a note from Spike. He’s going to continue on through the mainland, and names the baby Isla. Jamie sprints to the gate to find him but the tide is up, leaving him to scream Spike’s name in vain.
In the final scene, Spike roasts a fish on a spit by the side of a road. An Infected approaches and he confidently takes it down with his bow. More arrive and he manages to run up the road while bringing them down, but is foiled by a barricade. An adult Jimmy (Jack O'Connell) arrives, now Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, the leader of a cult of people in matching shell suits and bleached blonde bobs.
Jimmy, wearing his father’s crucifix upside down, congratulates Spike and offers to take over fighting the arriving swarm. The cult leap down and take out the Infected with an array of makeshift weaponry in a violent ritual. The final infected is strung up like the one in the barn. Spike is invited to join them, and the credits roll.
Is this a standalone movie?
Yes and no. 28 Years Later is part of a trilogy, with each functioning as its own movie with recurring characters.
“The new film is a standalone film, as we hope all of the films in the trilogy will be, but also we want all to be seen satisfyingly as a trilogy,” Boyle explained in his Reddit Ask Me Anything. “The central character of Jim will be there as a theme through them all.”
The sequel, 28 years Later: The Bone Temple, directed by Nia DiCosta, has already been filmed and will be released January 2026. The trilogy is already a sequel to 28 Days Later and 28 Years Later.
28 Years Later is in cinemas June 19
