Scott Armstrong

28 Years Later is a gripping, heartfelt, superbly-acted tale of life in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested UK. It’s disturbing, and it’s meant to disturb you. But there is also warmth, humanity, love, and hope. This is a movie clearly made by people who care about making thoughtful movies, who care about what they’re doing, care about the details. Nothing about this feels like it was concocted in some corporate office by people just trying to make a buck off you, which is how I normally feel walking out of a theater nowadays. There is a deep sincerity here. Alfie Williams, playing the lead role of 12-year-old Spike, deserves major credit for an actor of his age; he was absolutely able to carry the film and I found him truly convincing. The acting (and script; obviously the two are symbiotic) is really pretty superb all around; I have no complaints there at all. I will say that it was an interesting (bold? slightly bizarre?) decision to film the whole movie on an iPhone (yes, you heard that right). This lends a bit of a lo-fi look to much of the film… Which at times, works quite well. In some scenes, it lends a dreamlike, low-budget quality to the viewing experience and you may find yourself feeling like you’re watching a movie on VHS from the 90s. In most scenes, you don’t notice it at all. It’s one of many decisions the filmmakers made to throw the audience slightly off-balance, not enough to be distracting, but enough to make you feel that something is odd, to are you question where (and when) you are. I will say that the one area that it doesn’t work is in the low-light scenes, which are distractingly grainy; an iPhone lens simply isn’t big enough to film well in low-light conditions. But that is really my one and only complaint for the whole film. Go and see it.