The 28 Days Later franchise might be centered around the mindless ‘Infected’ driven by the basest of emotions—rage—but each instalment also examines the horrors that unfold when humans give in to their most primal of impulses: sex.
(Warning: Some spoilers ahead.)
The terrifying plot twist in 2002’s 28 Days Later is that an army brigade has been broadcasting messages to the survivors of the viral outbreak, beckoning them to their fortified compound not so they can offer them sanctuary, but so they can turn the women into their sex slaves.
(Since transmission occurs through physical contact and the characters are constantly seconds away from the Infected about to sink their teeth into them, the association between touch and danger grows so strong by the end of this film that a young girl walking in on a kiss between her two adult friends responds by instinctively smashing a bottle over the man’s head—she assumes he’s caught the virus and is on the attack.)
An impassioned kiss between a man (Robert Carlyle) and the wife (Catherine McCormack) he’s been reunited with after months proves ill-advised in the sequel 28 Weeks Later. What he doesn’t know is that she’s been infected. A few seconds later, his remorse at leaving her behind is replaced by violent rage, the virus has been introduced to an isolated community and a brutal spate of mass deaths ensue.
28 Years Later introduces new mutated zombie variants, but its most upsetting scene, yet again, focuses on the people in this story. A young boy catches his father sneaking off to have sex with another woman while his mother lies in bed, dying of a mysterious illness. The betrayal is rendered even more tragic by it capping off what’s meant to be one of the happiest days of his life: a grand community celebration of his first Infected kill.
Earlier that day, spurred on by his cult-y village community on the quarantined island of Lindisfarne, Spike (Alfie Williams) crossed over to the mainland with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and shot a slow-crawling Infected in the neck.
Ambushed by a group of the fast-moving variants and their stronger, more resilient Alpha, however, he fumbled in fright—as any boy would!—missed shots, and had to resort to hiding out with his dad in an abandoned house until the roof caved in on them. Even their crossing of the tidal causeway leading back home is fraught with terror as the Alpha pursues them at a furious pace. It’s been an exhausting day. But what happens at the party rattles Spike further.
Out there in the wilderness, Jamie is fearless, tough, in control—it’s easy to see why any 12-year-old boy would idolize him. At the party setting, though? He’s only human, and a flawed one at that. The first cracks in his facade appear when he lies to the rowdy revelers about Spike’s prowess as a marksman, vastly exaggerating his speed and aim. It comes across like he’s shielding his child from embarrassment, but is it really his own ego he can’t bear to see wounded?
At the raucous celebration, Spike grows increasingly uneasy. Egged on by his dad, he has his first taste of beer, but it only leaves him grimacing. The noise, the crowds, and the attention grow far too intense. He leaves in a daze, vomiting at the exit, which is when he spots his father embracing villager Rosey (Amy Cameron) in the distance.
There’s a lightness to Jamie as he runs off with her, in contrast to the resigned stoop of his shoulders at home as he cares for his long-suffering wife, Isla (Jodie Comer). As Spike follows them, the camera first lingers on Jamie and Rosey kissing, before bringing him into sharp focus as he lurks in the background, shocked and upset. As Jamie’s head disappears under her skirt, Spike’s seen enough. He races back home.
Exposed to the harsh realities of life on the other side of the causeway for the first time, his coming of age now includes sobering truths about his own home. Spike’s witnessed horrors no boy his age should, but when the camera hones in on his eyes as he spies on his cheating father, they’ve never looked more devastated.
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