Summary
28 Years Later, Danny Boyle’s much-anticipated upcoming zombie movie, recently showed off a brand-new trailer that featured some of the infected in store forhorror-loving fans. With the zombies now looking as brutal and as scary as they ever did before, writer Alex Garland explains what iconic video game franchise was behind the creation of the rage virus.
Thefirst trailer for28 Years Latersaw a nail-biting series of creepy snippets from the movie that included savage zombies running down a hill, a mountain of skulls and a scene where a zombie pops up out of a field behind Jodie Comer. Many fans of the franchise believed that the “field zombie” was Oscar-winner and the star of previous entries, Cillian Murphy, making a surprise cameo, but this was later debunked and revealed to be played by newcomer Angus Neill. Alex Garland previously said in an interview that his writing for the 2002 film28 Days Laterwas inspired by George A. Romero’sNight of the Living Deadfilm series, as well as the 1951 book,The Day of the Triffids. Garland had also mentioned that heripped off another movie calledKeswhen writing the script for28 YearsLater.Now, Garland gives fans an insight into what influenced the rage zombies' movements in the franchise, and it’s none other than a classic horror survival game.
Resident Evil Inspired the Terrifying Rage Zombie’s Movements in the 28 Years Later Franchise
Speaking withGQ on YouTubeabout his most iconic films, Alex Garland, who serves as the screenwriter in the28trilogy, revealed thatResident Evilwas the inspiration behind the Rage Zombie’s creepy movements seen throughout the films.Garland said that not long before writing28 Days Later, he started toplayResident Evilon his PlayStation, which reminded him how much he enjoyed the zombie genre, especially the movies. After realizing that a good zombie movie hadn’t been released in quite some time, Garland said that while he was playing the classic game, he didn’t find the zombies scary enough due to their slow movements, but found that the zombie dogs gave him “quite a few jump scares” because they would dart out of nowhere and move really quickly.
This idea of fast-moving zombies then gave Garland the inspiration to create “zombies that would move a lot more quickly” in a bid to give the audience the same feelings of terror that the killer Dobermanns gave Garland while playing the game. For decades, zombies were seen as slow, brainless corpses, mostly due toGeorge A. Romero’s films, but that all changed with Danny Boyle’s28 Days Laterin 2002. Instead of reducing its infected humans to wandering souls looking for brains to munch on, the franchise upended the zombie genre by turning the victims into pure rage machines who can speed-run and tear through flesh in seconds.
Garland recently sat down with the creator-writer ofThe Last of Us,Neil Druckmann, in an episode ofCreator to Creator.As well asResident Evil, the28 Years Laterwriter revealed that the post-apocalyptic franchise starring Ellie and Joel had a big influence on the film. As well as taking some inspiration from Clickers and Stalkers, Garland’s new story heavily features a child-parent dynamic between Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Spike (Alfie Williams), which is reminiscent of Joel and Ellie’s adventures through the wilderness. Garland even stated that he thought “The Last of Usis better than28 Days Later,” and given that the movie will be out in only a couple of months, it’s certainly a bold statement to make.
28 Years Laterwill be released in theaters on June 23, 2025.
