The film starts with a flashback to the early days of the virus, with a young boy called Jimmy watching Teletubbies with his siblings somewhere in Scotland. The house is invaded by infected and his mother screams at him to flee – he makes it to the nearby church, where his father, the minister, is joyful that the foretold day of judgement has arrived. He gives Jimmy his crucifix as the infected break in through the stained glass windows and attack him. Jimmy hides in the church praying, before escaping and running off.
Onscreen cards explain that the infection had reached Europe but was driven back (which takes care of the ending to 28 Weeks Later when they get through the channel tunnel to France) and the UK is now quarantined.
Back in the “now”, a young boy called Spike wakes up in his home on the tidal island of Lindisfarne, or Holy Island. He is going with his father Jamie across the causeway to the mainland, to make his first kill. His mother Isla is very ill, with some periods of lucidity. Jamie cooks bacon for breakfast – a rare treat – but Spike secretly gives his to his mother. The village is a mixture of the old and the new; arrows are made and wool is spun, and there are signs everywhere requesting minimal use of scarce resources. The villagers subsist with farming, fishing and agriculture.
Most of the village has turned out to see them off and there will be a party to welcome them back home again. As Spike and Jamie get to the large gates they are warned by Jenny, one of the village elders, that there can be no rescue if they get into trouble – and then they are off, walking at low tide to the mainland.
On the way over Jamie explains that they can only go back at low tide – it isn’t swimmable as currents would sweep them out to sea. Once on the mainland, he also points out areas where trees have been cut down by the islanders for fuel. Jamie is quite familiar with the landscape as he has made many visits to scavenge and forage. They see a massive herd of deer careering across the landscape, now that humans aren’t around to cull them.
They approach a falling-down old cottage and go inside, finding a writhing man hanging upside down with a bag over his head. JIMMY is carved into his torso and he’s writhing and screeching, Jamie surmises he’s been left as a punishment to be infected. He tells Spike to kill but the boy hesitates. The infected wriggles to the floor, and they kill it.
In the woods they spot a low crawling infected. The virus has mutated and there are now Alphas (tall and fast), more uprights who live as a sort of pack around the Alpha, and unfortunate crawlers who eat worms from the ground. Jamie encourages Spike to kill it which he does, cleanly, though another is behind Jamie and a third looks like a child.
Jamie wants to keep going, and keep killing, but they find a stag’s head stuck up a tree and he realises it’s the work of an Alpha and they should head home, quickly. Coming out into a field they see an Alpha and his pack standing by the Sycamore Gap (a famous tree on Hadrian’s Wall). The two rush for the trees with the infected in pursuit. Spike is to scared to shoot, even as Jamie periodically stops to create a specific formation to shoot arrows at the approaching infected. Eventually they make it back to the cottage and up into the loft while the infected crash about downstairs. That night Spike looks out of holes in the roof. To one side he can see a fire burning, and to another they see the lights of a patrol ship on the sea. Also outside, on the hill, is the Alpha which Jamie says is waiting for them.
Jamie and Spike fleeing the infected
A huge herd of deer tramples past at speed and the house starts to crumble; they have to move. They make it back to the causeway. Though it is covered in water it is only shin-deep so Jamie is sure they can make it. He tells Spike to line up the half-way arch and the final gates and make for them. The sky is beautiful with light. Chatting with relief as they cross they do not see the Alpha has followed them and is gaining on them fast. When they realise, they start to run with Jamie screaming for the villagers. Spike keeps falling and Jamie pulls him up, half dragging him towards the gates. The archers are in position and fire a barrage of arrows in a perfect high curve which slows down the Alpha but doesn’t stop him. Finally what looks like a flaming rock is catapulted at the Alpha and takes him down, killing him. Jamie and Spike make it to the gates but aren’t initially allowed back in in case they are infected; they are clearly always meant to wait. Jamie tells them to look in Spike’s eyes (eyes go red when infected) and they are let in.
They go to their welcome home party, where everyone is singing The Blaydon Races [a well known local song! Blaydon is a town near Newcastle, which itself is about 50 miles down the coast from Holy Island]. Jamie starts regaling everyone with tales of Spike’s bravery which Spike knows not to be true. Later he sees Jamie go off with Rosey, a young woman from the village.
Spike goes home and chats to Sam, an older man who has been keeping an eye on Isla. He asks Sam about the fire he and Jamie saw and Sam explains it is kept going by Dr Kelson, who has apparently gone mad (he used to be Sam’s GP near Whitley Bay). Spike also explains his discomfort with Jamie’s lies about their trip and what Spike achieved. Sam leaves and Spike climbs into bed with his mum and cuddles her.
The next day Jamie comes back claiming to have slept in a field. He argues with Spike about Dr Kelson, and also about Rosey. Spike tells him to leave and gets out his knife but Jamie seizes it and then leaves, punching the wall.
Spike hatches a plan – he sets fire to an outbuilding and tells the men watching the causeway that they all need to go and help. Meanwhile he and Isla head over the causeway. He’s taking her to Dr Kelson in the hope he can cure Isla. On the mainland she becomes lucid and says it is too dangerous, but they carry on. The spend the night in a church. During the night Spike is meant to be keeping watch but he falls asleep and doesn’t see a crawler coming towards them. Isla, feverish, somehow wakes and kills it just before it bites the sleeping Spike. In the morning they find it dead and realise what she’s done.
Erik, a Swedish sailor, has made it to the UK with his patrol in a life raft after their NATO boat sank in the North Sea. Pursued by infected, several are killed and only a few make it to some tunnels where an Alpha is waiting. Only Erik escapes.
Isla and Spike carry on. They see the Angel of the North and it triggers memories of visiting it with her father when she was a child. She also thinks Spike is her father. In a field an infected rises up behind them. It is slow and emaciated and Spike kills it though soon they are pursued by other infected. They run towards an old Shell garage (the S having fallen off) with an attached Happy Eater restaurant. The run in but it’s full of gas vapour. From the roof, Erik shouts to them to get down and explodes the gas, burning several infected. Outside, Isla struggles to recover her breath and calls Spike Daddy, and Erik comments on how weird everyone is. He doesn’t seem pleased to have rescued them but ends up carrying Isla so they can continue to Dr Kelson.
On the walk Erik explains to Spike about his fiend Felix back home in Sweden who became a delivery driver, delivering packages bought online – then realises Spike won’t have a clue what he is talking about. He just means he wishes he had stayed and done a boring job like Felix rather than join the Navy.
They rest in a field, sharing Spike’s great bag of apples, and Erik shows Spike a picture of his fiancée on his iPhone. Spike has never seen an iPhone and knows nothing of modern beauty trends in the rest of the world and is astounded by her pout. Then Erik’s iPhone conks out and he throws it away.
They come across an old train and an infected woman giving birth. Isla approaches and silently assists her, woman to woman. The baby is born and is clearly not infected. Suddenly the mother becomes aggressive and Erik shoots her dead. The Alpha approaches and attacks Erik, pulling his head and spine out in one. He pursues Spike and Isla off the train (they still have the baby) but they are saved by Dr Kelson, who from a distance pacifies the Alpha – who is still holding Erik’s head – with a morphine dart. The Alpha is still conscious but quiet and still. Dr Kelson calls him Samson and explains the Alpha has been living in the area for three years or so.
He retrieves Erik’s head and takes Isla and Spike and the baby across the river to where he lives. He is orange from the iodine he covers himself in, explaining that it repels the virus. He shows Spike and Isla his Memento Mori – a circle of trees of bleached human bones and, in the centre, a tower of skulls. He explains what it means: remember you must die. He treats all bodies the same as even the infected are people. Dr Kelson puts Erik’s head through his furnace then cools the skull, before giving it to Spike to place on the tower. The doctor asks about the uninfected baby and speaks of “the magic of the placenta”, saying he had wondered if that might happen.
Dr Kelson in his Memento Mori
Dr Kelton examines Isla carefully and gently explains that he thinks she has brain cancer, possibly metastasised breast cancer. He cannot cure her but he can help her. Isla understands he is offering to give her a good death. She lets him sedate Spike and tells him she loves him. Spike sits quietly with the baby while Isla is euthanised and her body burned away. Later the doctor gives Isla’s now-clean skull to Spike who climbs to the top of the tower of skulls just as as the sun is rising. He puts her skull at the very top.
Dr Kelson tells Spike about Momento Amoris: remember you must love. They then have to hide in a secure ditch when an angry Samson makes an appearance but Spike manage to sedate him. Dr Kelton tells Spike it is time for him to go home; he takes the baby in a bucket and returns to the island, leaving her there by the gates to be found with a note explaining that she is uninfected and called Isla, and that he is returning to the mainland to go inland and will come back when he is ready.
When the baby is discovered Jamie runs screaming to the causeway but the tide has come in.
28 days later, Spike is cooking a fish for himself in a rocky area when an infected approaches. He waits until it is near and fires an arrow, killing it. However several others are running towards him. He runs away but finds himself at a dead end – as an infected runs towards him Spike turns and carefully shoots an arrow, killing it. Above on the boulders a young man stands; he has bleached blond hair, a garish tracksuit and gold jewellery, and is also wearing Jimmy’s dad’s crucifix from the beginning of the film. Jimmy – for it is presumably he, though now calling himself Lord Jimmy Crystal – praises Spike for his excellent and cool-headed actions, but points out that more were approaching and could they help? Jimmy and his crew of other Jimmys jump down and kill all the approaching infected with various well-rehearsed ninja moves. Spike decides to join their group.
THE END! [No mid-credits sequence.]
The next movie in this new trilogy – 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple has already been filmed and will come out in January 2026.
READ MORE
28 Years Later: my 5-star review
Abandonment, isolation and memory in 28 Years Later, plus what comes next
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