Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s 28 Years Later is full of terrifying moments, scenes in which the end is extremely f***ing nigh.
However, one scene early in the film takes the cake as Scene Most Likely to Propel Your Heart Into Your Throat. We’re talking about Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his son Spike (Alfie Williams) and their encounter with the evolved variant of infected, the Alpha.
These super-strong male zombies are near-unbeatable, with improved speed, agility, and intelligence over their infected brethren, whom they can command in a single horrible screech. During Spike’s first excursion to the mainland, the father and son see a colossal Alpha looming on the horizon, and the next 12 hours are spent battling his legions of infected.
“In the movie, you’ve gone for an interesting day out,” Taylor-Johnson told Mashable. “Father and son have gone out to the mainland, he’s going to show him the infected and see who they can hunt and kill, and it gets worse and worse, their situation, so the stakes definitely get very scary.”
However, it’s the final chase, when Jamie and Spike are on the home stretch, with the tide lowering enough for them to cross the all-important but extremely narrow and long causeway to Holy Island, that the Alpha finally gives chase. Reader, it’s one of the most frightening scenes you’ll see all year, our protagonists scrambling through shallow water with the thundering Alpha on their heels, and Young Fathers’ distressing score sending your heart rate sky high.
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“It was very intense. When you watch this movie, my exhaustion as Spike is real,” Williams said. “The amount of takes it took was exhausting, wasn’t it? I mean, you had to literally drag us through the water.”
“Terrifying, because the Alpha’s like seven-foot-tall, so his stride would meet our every two,” said Taylor-Johnson.
“When we were out in the scene, it felt real, like we were being chased by the Alpha,” said Williams.
Hard same.
