Should you watch '28 Days Later' and '28 Weeks Later' before '28 Years Later'?
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Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland return to the zombie franchise they kicked off in 2002 with 28 Days Later to offer the franchise's third installment, 28 Years Later. However, the 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later, didn't touch on the characters of the first film at all. So, should audiences rewatch these movies before diving into the next chapter of this undead saga?
28 Days Later centered on Jim (Cillian Murphy), a lone man lost in a post-apocalyptic London laid low by the Rage Virus, which has turned humans into flesh-chomping infected. The sequel, 28 Weeks Later, which takes place months after the initial breakout, focuses on a family of four whose reunion sparks a new breakout in a safe zone overseen by the American military.
Now, 28 Years Later follows a father (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his 12-year-old son (Alfie Williams), who scour a devastated United Kingdom for resources to bring home to their safe haven of a village. So how do these movies connect?
SEE ALSO: Review: '28 Years Later' is a triumphant return, one of the scariest films of the year
We'll answer that, and tell you everything you might want to remember before sitting down for 28 Years Later. Fear not — no spoilers for 28 Years Later lie below!
The short answer is no. This franchise works as an anthology, with each film focusing on a different family unit, be it Jim and his found family of survivors, the Harris family from the second movie, or Jamie, Spike, and Isla (Jodie Comer) in 28 Years Later. But there are some key details about the Rage Virus and the infected that are helpful to remember going in.
Plus, rewatching the prior films is a good way to get amped for 28 Years Later. How better to brace yourself for what Boyle and Garland have brewed for their intense return?
To catch up on how to watch them, check out New to Streaming.
In 28 Days Later, the story followed London bike messenger Jim (Murphy), who comes out of a coma 28 days after the city has been ravaged by a Rage Virus that's turned mild-mannered citizens into rampaging infected.
This film, written by Garland and helmed by Boyle, introduced the Rage Virus, which takes only seconds to transform its victim into a new breed of zombie. Gone is George A. Romero's slow-walking undead. This infected person can run and isn't actually dead, so they can be killed by fairly conventional means — just avoid their infectious blood! Even a dead infected can be dangerous. Plus, they have no fear, throwing themselves full-bodied into any obstacle. So they are scary as hell as they run amok in metro or rural areas.
28 Days Later also introduced Jim's ad-hoc family of survivors, who learn through their rough time with a military squad that the UK has become a quarantine zone, with other nations surveilling to be sure it stays that way. Yet the film ends on a hopeful note, with Jim and his fellow survivors signaling a surveillance plane to show they're alive and uninfected.
The sequel's ending, however, is far from hopeful.
Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and written by Fresnadillo, Rowan Joffé, E.L. Lavigne, and Jesus Olmo, 28 Weeks Later offers flashier slaughter scenes and the inclusion of American military figures played by Jeremy Renner and Rose Byrne. But the focus is once again on a family, this one reunited in a safe zone on London's Isle of Dogs.
There, patriarch Don Harris (Robert Carlyle) is eager to reconnect with his children, Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) — and also his wife, Alice (Catherine McCormack), the Typhoid Mary of the Rage Virus.
Basically, Alice is infected, but not symptomatic in the way of the rampaging killers. A medic onsite (Byrne) suggests that her DNA could be the key to a cure for the Rage Virus. However, before that science can cook, Alice has a saliva-heavy make-out session with her husband, which sparks a new wave of infection in the safe zone, chasing the kids and their American friends to seek another safe zone.
At the film's end, it seems the Harris kids will be OK, swept by helicopter to a safe zone in France. But the film's final image shows the infected swarming up from the underground trains of Paris, revealing the virus has hit mainland Europe. The only possible bit of hope is that young Andy appears to have the same genetic quirk as his mom, having been bitten but not turned. So, could there be a chance at a cure in 28 Years Later?
You'll see.
28 Years Later opens only in theaters June 20.
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