Watching the trailer for 28 Years Later this morning at 8 AM bleary-eyed and barely awake, I went through what I imagine was a very similar experience to many other viewers - Wait a minute, is that f**king zombie Cillian Murphy?
The trailer has elicited a huge reaction for many reasons, whether it be revealing the return of zombie Jim (Murphy’s character from 28 Days Later), the creepy background audio used for Navy Seal torture, or just Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
No, that wasn’t a typo - Taylor-Johnson was the beginning and end of explaining why people should see this film. You read correctly.
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Eagle-eyed viewers, however, have been combing through the trailer looking for hints as to why Murphy’s zombie corpse is still around 28 years on if he did die, considering he’s alive at the end of 28 Days.
Meanwhile, others noticed two different posts which suggested that Jim has a wider part to play in the narrative than was hinted in the trailer.
Two indications towards this are his name being written at two separate points in the trailer.
You can see for yourself here:
One sees a wall with graffiti saying: “Behold Jimmy he is coming with the clouds.”
Ominous.
The other saw “J I M M Y” carved into the back of someone hung upside down.
Even more ominous.
One post on Reddit said: “I think the trailer may be leading us astray about Jim. The church looks like the one Jim stumbled upon in the original.
“It also looks like a flash back in which someone could be talking about.
“Yes the quick image at the beginning looks like him, but it is also out of context. Possibly a vision? I personally don’t think they’d bring Jim back and immediately reveal him in the first trailer.
“I suspect he could possibly be the person upside down with the bag over their head.”
Another thread also agreed with this idea that he has a bigger part to play, commenting on a picture of zombie Jim saying: “It really looks that way, but I doubt that after all the secrecy, they would just reveal his fate like that.
“The set photos didn’t seem like flashbacks.”
Someone else said: “They did mention he was coming back in a surprising way. Hopefully this is just a red herring, because if this is his characters fate then they revealed it way too soon”.
This would not be a surprise based on the ending to 28 Days Later.
In the theatrical ending, Murphy’s Jim survives. In the film’s original scripted ending, that made it as far as to be shot, however, he succumbs to his wounds and dies.
In the film’s DVD commentary, however, director Danny Boyle revealed that he'd changed the ending because he wanted the story to continue.
All of that just to have Murphy’s character be a cameo zombie would be bizarre but we’ll find out soon enough.
28 Years Later will release in theatres June 20, 2025.
Topics: 28 Years Later, Cillian Murphy, Horror, Film, TV and Film
Michael Slavin