Summary

Alex Garland, writer of the 28 trilogy, reveals Resident Evil inspired the fast movements of rage zombies.
Garland aimed to create terror in the audience by making zombies move quickly, like in Resident Evil.
The Last of Us also influenced 28 Years Later, introducing a child-parent dynamic to the upcoming film.

28 Years Later, Danny Boyle’s much-anticipated upcoming zombie movie, recently showed off a brand-new trailer that featured some of the infected in store for horror-loving fans. With the zombies now looking as brutal and as scary as they ever did before, writer Alex Garland explains what iconic video game franchise was behind the creation of the rage virus.

The first trailer for 28 Years Later saw a nail-biting series of creepy snippets from the movie that included savage zombies running down a hill, a mountain of skulls and a scene where a zombie pops up out of a field behind Jodie Comer. Many fans of the franchise believed that the "field zombie" was Oscar-winner and the star of previous entries, Cillian Murphy, making a surprise cameo, but this was later debunked and revealed to be played by newcomer Angus Neill. Alex Garland previously said in an interview that his writing for the 2002 film 28 Days Later was inspired by George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead film series, as well as the 1951 book, The Day of the Triffids. Garland had also mentioned that he ripped off another movie called Kes when writing the script for 28 Years Later. Now, Garland gives fans an insight into what influenced the rage zombies' movements in the franchise, and it's none other than a classic horror survival game.

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By Chris Harkin

Resident Evil Inspired the Terrifying Rage Zombie’s Movements in the 28 Years Later Franchise

Speaking with GQ on YouTube about his most iconic films, Alex Garland, who serves as the screenwriter in the 28 trilogy, revealed that Resident Evil was the inspiration behind the Rage Zombie's creepy movements seen throughout the films. Garland said that not long before writing 28 Days Later, he started to play Resident Evil on his PlayStation, which reminded him how much he enjoyed the zombie genre, especially the movies. After realizing that a good zombie movie hadn't been released in quite some time, Garland said that while he was playing the classic game, he didn't find the zombies scary enough due to their slow movements, but found that the zombie dogs gave him "quite a few jump scares" because they would dart out of nowhere and move really quickly.

This idea of fast-moving zombies then gave Garland the inspiration to create "zombies that would move a lot more quickly" in a bid to give the audience the same feelings of terror that the killer Dobermanns gave Garland while playing the game. For decades, zombies were seen as slow, brainless corpses, mostly due to George A. Romero's films, but that all changed with Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later in 2002. Instead of reducing its infected humans to wandering souls looking for brains to munch on, the franchise upended the zombie genre by turning the victims into pure rage machines who can speed-run and tear through flesh in seconds.

Garland recently sat down with the creator-writer of The Last of Us, Neil Druckmann, in an episode of Creator to Creator. As well as Resident Evil, the 28 Years Later writer revealed that the post-apocalyptic franchise starring Ellie and Joel had a big influence on the film. As well as taking some inspiration from Clickers and Stalkers, Garland's new story heavily features a child-parent dynamic between Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Spike (Alfie Williams), which is reminiscent of Joel and Ellie's adventures through the wilderness. Garland even stated that he thought "The Last of Us is better than 28 Days Later," and given that the movie will be out in only a couple of months, it's certainly a bold statement to make.

28 Years Later will be released in theaters on June 20, 2025.