It’s probably fair to say that zombie movies and TV shows have something of a pattern. There’s an outbreak, we cut to years later when only a few survive, then follow a small band of survivors who get stuck on the roof of a mall. I think that’s about 90 percent of them. Which is why the complete weirdness featured in the latest trailer for 28 Years Later is so incredibly welcome.
One of the greatest TV shows ever made was Damon Lindelof’s 2014 series The Leftovers. Where many shows have previously covered the territory of large numbers of people mysteriously vanishing, In The Leftovers, two percent of the Earth’s population inexplicably vanished in a single moment. The program was set two years later, focusing on a small New York community, exploring the repercussions of this event. And it was weird. It was rooted in the unknown, in the lack of an explanation, and the consequences on society, whether it was the formation of deeply peculiar cults, or the personal trauma of losing loved ones. But also, other stuff: dogs were turning feral, deer became less timid, and there was this one waterfall…
I bring this up because it’s that same vibe of humanity’s spiraling into strangeness that seems most key to this new footage from 28 Years Later. Rather than exploring the horror of the immediate zombie apocalypse, here director Danny Boyle seems to be using the three-decades-on approach to envisage a society that’s known little else, and the bizarre, uncomfortable, and spiritual effects this has had on people. Plus, you know, people running away from brain-hungry undeads.
The movie is out on June 20, so there’s still a fair amount of waiting to do. But this is looking like it could be something very interesting.
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