28 Years Later is a subversive Masterpiece about Modern Man’s need for confrontation with Death & has single-handedly revitalized Cinema as an artform, much like the Fisher King Grail Quest it depicts

Spoiler alert

Cinema is back: Donny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, in theaters now, is a subversive masterpiece, which is the only way for a movie to be a masterpiece. Movies are inherently perverted in terms of their form, the technology, and the ways in which it is consumed, voyeuristically, and so subversion is the first step towards artistic merit: The “Film” of the film, must first be Overcome, before it can even begin to say anything or be analysed in terms of having a content. Incidentally 28 Years Later is exactly and explicitly about Self-Overcoming, and is through and through an aesthetic and moral Heideggerian artpiece. It is overtly about man’s confrontation with Death, Male Initiation, and the place of the modern (English) man in History.

The film is subversive in the a meta-sense, in terms of everything outside the movie. It’s not a nudge nuge wink wink propaganda movie, it’s not the content that’s subversive – the content of the movie is refreshingly frank and sincere, and much of the moment-to-moment enjoyement I got in the cinema, was the recurring thought that “I’m so happy that 12 year old boys who are not me, can have good movies again, and cinema is not dead, and it’s not just all mind numbing propaganda poison from here on out, but generation alpha and my own children will have Fun Cool Adventure Stories For Boys”.

The Content of the movie is a non-ironic, completely straightforward Hero’s Journey adventure story about a boy becoming a man, lacking entirely in irony or self-debasement or neuroticism. The reason it can be this, is because the subversion is baked right into the production: It is banking on a brand name, the “28 days later” franchise, purporting to make a zombie movie, but it is not a zombie movie, or even a horror movie, at all. In terms of genre, it is a family drama, about a family being torn apart by cancer.

Told from the perspective of 12-year old Spike, the movie is about a boy becoming a man, as he is initiated into adulthood through a hunting trip with his dad. His father fails at this, and through his failure at conducting the initiation, the child remains a child, so the boy goes on his own journey of adventure and danger, meets an esoteric magician, and eventually achieves self-initiation, making up for his fathers mistake. The film then ends with his chosen exile from his community and the sequel is set up that the father and son will reunite as men in the second or third movie.

Because the irony is all in the “frame” – in the fact that this is the “third movie in the 23 later franchise”, the actual film as a standalone piece of art, is completely unsoiled by irony, and is completely human and genuine. If you pack away all of that baggage, from being a “franchise”, what’s left at the core is a human drama about a very specific point in history. It is not a universal monomyth story – it is very specifically about being a nationally english man in 2025. It’s relatable even though you are not, but what makes it better than Star Wars is that it is specific, not universal. It is specifically about, the universal problem of Male Initiation, but specifically instanced and exemplified within the British nation and the English people.

The Lore of the movie is totally arbitrary. You don’t need to know the in-universe “lore” of the previous films, because it is universally accessible at its core: 12 year old Spike is confronted with parental failure. His father is not evil or selfish, there is no twist where it turns out the cozy little village Spike grows up in are secretly the real monsters if you think about it. His father is not the secret villain all along. He is merely weak. And that is, for a 12 year old boy, a total catastrophe.

After failing at the hunting trip, Spike’s father lies to their community that he succeeded, but not out of selfishness, not because he wants it to reflect well on him, that he has a cool warrior son. He lies because he wants to pump up his son, from a place of genuine love. Spike complains, why is dad lying about this? It makes me complicit in his lies, it is in fact not helping me be stronger than I am.

Spike’s mother is terminally ill from a mysterious disease, and is losing her mind. She is in pain, and a great burden on her family, lashing out in rage and delirium at them. After coming home from the failed initiation ritual, Spike discovers that his father is being unfaithful to his dying insane mother. Disillusioned with his father, he chooses to kidnap his mother and take her to a doctor, away from the security of their village, to save her.

After many trials and tribulations, they arrive at the Magical Sage Wizard, who has mastery of nature and can manipulate the otherwise deathly beasts that has threatened Spike the whole movie. The Wizard is spending his life constructing an elaborate monument made of thousands of human skulls, in what he overtly calls a Memento Mori, which the movie explains at length to the audience. Then he inspects the mother and declares she is dying and he cannot heal her with his magic wizard powers.

The Mother accepts death, and asks for forgiveness for failing her son: She knew she was dying, but she didn’t have the guts to tell the boy the whole journey was pointless. The wizard gives her a peaceful painless death, and Spike climbs the mountain of skulls to place his mother’s skull at the very top. In so doing he confronts death: he has killed many people on his road to this moment. He has been in mortal danger and narrowly escaped death many times. And now he is climbing a mountain of skulls, to honor his Mother, by placing her remains at the peak of the mountain – As he undergoes an internal confrontation with, and acceptance of, his mother’s death.

Spike is confronted with parental weakness, not with parental abuse. His challenge as a 12 year old boy is emotionally confronting and coming to terms with, his parents weakness: His mother’s disease and death is a cruel betrayal, and his Father’s failure at conducting the initial initiation ceremony, as well as the revelations of his infidelity, are likewise profound emotional betrayals. But Spike accepts their weakness, and chooses love, and completes a spiritual journey to honor his mother, and this finally makes him a Man, in the way that his father genuinely desired for him to be.

The opening scene of the movie takes place during the initial crisis, 28 years before the rest of the movie, and it portrays a young boy running away to his Priest father, who completely fails to protect him, and instead commits suicide. This scene is not merely zombie movie slob, but is fully coherent with the overall thematic core of the rest of the movie, it is an overture: The previous institutions for Male Initiations are no longer functional. The Anglican church has lost divine mandate, and You must personally go on a spiritual journey of self discovery, to self-initiate, and rediscover a pathway to the Divine. The Boomer generation have lost Dasein and become deracinated, and they cannot initiate you into adulthood. Society has in fact crumbled and we are now living in a strange post-civilization, where we have to go back and re-invent the wheel and the rituals because they were not passed down correctly. You must confront Death at every level as well as learn about history and your place in the world, to achieve Dasein and become integrated and rooted, and rebirth Tradition. Your parents sin is weakness, and you must forgive them for this weakness, and you can only do that by climbing a mountain of skulls: confronting your own mortality, as well as theirs.

The movie is so good. It was the best time I’ve had watching a modern movie in years. Decades. The movie becomes an example of its own thesis and theme as the return of Cinema, it embodies its own message of rediscovery of right doctrine and self-initiation, by being a great adventure story for boys. Cinema has been dead for 20 years and the industry has been cannibalized by star wars and super heroes. The real post-apocalypse is the media environment of the past 20 years, and 28 year later (?) the movie does exactly, as a movie, what Spike the main character does, as a human protagonist. Like Spike overcomes his parental failure and becomes a Man despite everything, 28 years later overcomes the death spiral of the movie industry and becomes a Good Uplifting Adventure Story For Boys, despite everything being stacked against it. And this becomes a sort of alchemical reaction that makes it all the stronger, it does not just preach, but embodies its message, which even if you don’t think about it or notice these things, resonate with you at a pre-linguistic level: it is inspiring, because it proves that it can be done, by its very existence. It is not an empty platitude, but an embodied illustration, a Marco to the audiences Polo. He goes before us into Galilee.

The theme of the first movie in the 28 days series was “But MAN was the real monster all along”. The theme of this movie is “Infidelity and parental neglect was the real monster all along”.

There’s a bunch of zombies running around and they bite people and stuff but thats not really important. The lore and worldbuilding is all just there to distract your learned-helpless neurotic mind, so you can focus on whats important: A family being torn apart by the circumstances of life, and a Son redeemed through sacrifice, forgiveness, and learning to Honor his Mother and Father.

On a technical level one is tempted to call it a “return to form”, the relief of an un-ironic, un-neurotic straightforward story. But there is and can be no such thing, there is no return. There is only moving forward, and it is on a technical level, a new form: subversive on the outside, on the prodution level, on the “media discourse on twitter” level, but with a soft goo-ey core of complete emotional sincerity – and wisdom, and confidence - in the actual brick and mortar movie:

You can forgive your dad, but the price you pay for that emotional catharsis, is that you have to become a better, stronger man than him.

Movie of the year 10/10. I loved it. The last 10 minutes has a sequel setup random nonsense that really ruined the ending for me, where there is a complete tonal shift and famous necrophiliac pedovore Jimmy Savile shows up with a gang of british chavs in tracksuits and do parkour ninja karate on the zombies, and the following two movies I just learned are coming, are either going to be complete and utter trash, or the “trilogy” is going to be the actual “next star wars” media phenomenon when we look back. In 28 years. Later.