The end of 28 Years Later is more unpredictable than the Rage virus itself, but one detail about the final scene was foreshadowed earlier in the new movie, as revealed by director Danny Boyle.
28 Days Later is one of the best zombie movies of all time, with a killer soundtrack, impeccable performances led by Cillian Murphy, and sheer horror (fast zombies > slow zombies).
But with Boyle back at the helm and Alex Garland returning for writing duties, 28 Years Later is a worthy sequel, examining a dark version of the UK where humanity is cut off from the outside world and the infected have evolved.
The new movie is the first of a planned trilogy, with the ending setting up the sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. And, well, let’s just say you won’t see it coming. Warning: spoilers ahead!
Danny Boyle explains Jimmy from 28 Years Later ending
Boyle has pointed out that when Spike (Alfie Williams) comes across Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), this technically isn’t the first time we see him. O’Connell’s character is the grown-up version of the child whose family is killed by zombies in the opening sequence.
There are a few clues, the first being the name. Jimmy is one of the kids watching Teletubbies when all of a sudden his home comes under siege by the infected. His mother calls out his name and tells him to run, and he heads to the church where he finds his priest father embracing the apocalypse.
Before offering himself to the zombies (who he calls his “children”), he gives Jimmy his crucifix necklace – the same one Spike spots on O’Connell’s character, only the cross is upside down.
There is another more subtle clue. Like his father, he’s prone to cult-like leadership, but instead of preaching scripture, he leads a congregation of survivors trained in kung fu and dressed as the late pedophile, Jimmy Savile. Yes, really.
And then there’s the fact that their kill montage is backed by a metal version of the Teletubbies theme song. It truly is as unhinged as it sounds, and might be one of the best horror movie endings of the year.
According to Boyle, the meaning behind it is much deeper, signifying the main theme of 28 Years Later while setting up The Bone Temple.
“The role of Jack O’Connell’s character and his family, which is a replacement, really, for the family he loses at the beginning of the film, is to reintroduce evil into what has become a compassionate environment,” he told the Independent.
“I asked Alex [Garland] right at the beginning to just tell me what’s the nature of each of the films, and he said that the nature of the first film is about family.
“The second film is about the nature of evil. And you’re about to meet a lot more of them when it’ll be more appropriate to talk about them in the second film.” Jimmy will be a main character in The Bone Temple, with Cillian Murphy’s Jim set to return too.
Jimmy’s fingerprints are all over the movie, too. The hung-up man who got left for the infected? He has “Jimmy” carved out on his torso. The name is also graffitied on the side of a house.
When you consider Savile is the UK’s worst sex offender, this makes the cult all the more horrifying. So much so that some viewers are only just realizing who he is.
“Given everything that occurred in 28 Years Later, it has taken me three days to realise that Jimmy was the child survivor from the Teletubbies massacre,” wrote one on X/Twitter.
Another said, “Film TikTok has just realized that the Jimmy in the first five minutes of 28 years later is the same Jimmy in the last 5 minutes.”
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