28 YEARS LATER

Name: 28 YEARS LATER
Item: 28 YEARS LATER
Author: Review

"Abhorrent Theme and Excessive Content Mars Arthouse Horror Flick"

Family Content: -4 Intentional blasphemy, evil, gross immorality, and/or worldview problems. (To be avoided)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

28 YEARS LATER is a sequel to a 2002 movie about a virus that turns people into raging cannibalistic monsters. Spike, a 12-year-old boy, lives with his parents on an island sanctuary. A causeway to the British mainland is only visible at low tide. Spike’s father has trained him to kill infected people by using a bow and arrow. Spike’s ailing mother hallucinates and is confined mostly to her bedroom. Spike decides to take her across the causeway to find a doctor who’s found some way to keep alive. Spike hopes the doctor can help his mother.

28 YEARS LATER is actually a coming-of-age story that focuses on a boy and his sickly mother facing a dangerous world. However, the movie is too disturbing and not really entertaining. It has lots of extreme violence and strong foul language. It also has images of naked people raging about and trying to kill and eat anything that moves and gross images of fat naked men eating worms. Finally, 28 YEARS LATER has strong pagan elements with abhorrent images of death, anti-Christian content and themes promoting euthanasia.

Content:

(PaPa, BB, C, AbAb, LLL, VVV, S, NNN, A, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong pagan and mixed but abhorrent worldview with some moral values about a 12-year-old boy trying to help his ailing mother, with some Christian references, but mixed with strong anti-Christian content such as a crazed priest who welcomed apocalypse because apocalypse brings Judgment Day, a rosary with a large cross on it becomes an image of an upside-down cross at the end, killing people infected by a virus that turns them into violent raging cannibals is seen implicitly as an act of “mercy killing” or euthanasia, which is evil, and euthanizing a person wracked by terminal cancer is also promoted;

Foul Language:

About 41 obscenities (including about 31 “f” words), two strong profanities using the name of Jesus Christ and two light profanities, plus some gross images about eating earthworms;

Violence:

Extreme and often gruesome violence includes crazed infected people are shot dead with arrows in the neck and head and heart, naked infected people feast on human victims they’ve killed or seriously wounded, a group of young people surround some infected people and gleefully kill them in one scene, strong infected people can rip a person’s head and spine from their body, doctor takes one such victim’s head and spine and places it into a solution that eats away the flesh and leaves the skull, and he has the boy find an “honored” place on a tower of skulls meant to commemorate the dead, the boy climbs a tall makeshift ladder to place another skull on top of the commemorative tower of skulls, killing the infected people is implied to be an act of euthanasia or “mercy killing” (this is of course abhorrent though the movie itself seems to be pro-euthanasia), an infected woman gives birth to a healthy baby, and an uninfected woman bites off the umbilical cord, and an implied act of euthanasia is filmed in a positive manner;

Sex:

An act of depicted adultery occurs when a young boy’s father secretly and passionately kisses another woman outside a makeshift rural saloon;

Nudity:

Many images of full frontal nudity, especially of men, upper female nudity in at least one scene, and glimpses of rear nudity (there are no sex scenes, though, involving nudity);

Alcohol Use:

Partying people drink alcohol in a saloon;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

A doctor seems to have descended into and resorted to pagan rituals commemorating the dead, and gross images of fat infected people mindlessly crawling around and eating earthworms.

More Detail:

28 YEARS LATER is a horror movie sequel to a 2002 movie about a virus that turns people into raging cannibalistic monsters, and the new movie is about a 12-year-old boy who leaves his island sanctuary to find a doctor for his ailing mother on the British mainland, which has been quarantined by the countries in Europe because of the virus. 28 YEARS LATER is a coming-of-age story that focuses on a boy and his sickly mother facing a dark and dangerous world, but the movie is too disturbing and not all that entertaining because it has lots of extreme violence and strong foul language, images of fully naked people raging about and trying to kill anything that moves, gross images of fat naked men crawling around eating worms, and strong pagan elements that contain abhorrent images of death, anti-Christian symbols and themes of euthanasia.

The movie starts with a flashback to a month or so after the outbreak of the virus. A young boy sees his family, including his father, a priest working in the church, being killed by infected people. The boy’s father hands him a large rosary with a cross at the end. The boy hides from the infected people and presumably escapes.

Cut to 28 years later. Young Spike’s father, Jamie, is taking him away from their island sanctuary with a short causeway to the British mainland that only appears at low tide. Armed with bows and arrows, Jamie is teaching Spike how to kill infected people by shooting them in the head, neck or heart. It’s a rite of passage to teach Spike how to defend himself against the infected people.

Spike makes his first kills, but they run into trouble just before evening. They find sanctuary in a decrepit house, where they must hide in the attic. As night descends, they spy in the distance a place with a raging bonfire. Spike asks his father what it is, and he says it’s just some crazy doctor named Kelson who’s decided to hole up in a small village. The father is rather vague about it.

Suddenly, the house where they’re hiding starts to fall apart. Spike’s father decides they need to make a run for it, to the causeway. It’s still early enough in the high tide to run across the causeway to the island sanctuary. They barely make it back while being chased by a lone infected person, which Spike’s father describes as an “alpha,” an infected person who apparently can locate food and shelter to survive.

That night, the whole island gathers at the local saloon to celebrate Spike’s first kills. However, Spike’s ailing mother can’t come. She hallucinates and has trouble identifying the identities of people around her. So, she spends most of her days lying in bed.

During the party, Spike’s father wanders off, and Spike follows him. He sees his father kissing another woman in an alleyway next to the saloon. Angrily, he rushes home and gets his mother out of bed. He’s decided to leave the island sanctuary and find Dr. Kelson in hopes that he can cure his mother.

Can they fend off the infected people on the mainland? Will they reach Dr. Kelson? Can Kelson help Spike’s mother?

At first glance, this story seems like it could be rather entertaining. And, sometimes it is when Spike and his mother are running away from infected people. However, too much of the movie is a gruesome enterprise where the goal is just survival. Thus, the boy must learn how to kill the infected people. In fact, all the young boys on the island are trained to be part of the island’s army, its defense mechanism.

There’s more than just that, however.

28 YEARS LATER is also filled with disturbing content that ultimately diminishes its entertainment quality. It not only has lots of extreme gruesome violence and strong foul language. It also has images of fully naked people raging about and trying to kill anything that moves, and gross images of fat naked infected men crawling around and eating worms. Finally, despite Spike’s emotional connection to his mother and some other Christian, redemptive and moral content, 28 YEARS LATER has strong pagan elements. For example, the movie includes abhorrent images of death, anti-Christian symbols and themes of euthanasia. The ending is particularly depressing and disturbing. Though the ending strongly suggests that another sequel is coming, there doesn’t seem to be much hope left for Spike.