When the first 28 Years Later trailer dropped last year, film fans reported feeling ‘genuine fear’. Today (April 17), a second has been released which gives viewers an even better look at the horrors to come.
The new trailer opens with a group of soldiers entering a dark building and swiftly coming up against someone- or something – bloodthirsty, before panning to an isolated island which survivors have turned into a secure, infected-free community. But why is it strewn with skulls? And is everything there as it first appears?
The upcoming film will return viewers to a bleak world where a virus has turned most of humanity into aggressive, zombie-like creatures. The latest instalment serves as a sequel to 2002’s 28 Days Later, and 2007’s 28 Weeks Later, and is set 30 years after the ‘rage’ virus first appeared.
The official synopsis reads: “It’s been almost three decades since the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory, and now, still in a ruthlessly enforced quarantine, some have found ways to exist amidst the infected. One such group of survivors lives on a small island connected to the mainland by a single, heavily-defended causeway.
“When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.”
The first trailer featured unsettling imagery such as a television playing the children’s TV show Teletubbies being smattered with blood and a group of jerking, zombie silhouettes appearing over a hill, but it was the soundtrack that really chilled viewers to their core.
That same soundtrack is back in the second trailer. Over the haunting imagery, a reading of the Rudyard Kipling poem Boots is recited. The poem from 1903 is ultimately about war and suffering, and tells the story of soldiers heading toward a grisly fate, with repetitive phrasing echoing their marching boots.
The reading viewers hear in the 28 Years Later trailer was recorded in 1915 by the American actor Taylor Holmes, which begins calmly before becoming louder and descending into screeching. It’s no surprise the audio has left viewers unsettled, as it is actually used to test the resilience of military personnel.
The US Navy runs a Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) programme. Those taking part in the training exercise are detained in a cell while the 1915 recording is played repeatedly in an effort to prepare them for surviving in hostile environments.
Over on Reddit, users who claimed to have undergone SERE training recounted their experiences with the audio. One claimed: “Did SERE and didn’t remember this. Found it on YouTube and now I remember it and wish I hadn’t looked it up,” as another recounted: “It’s not just the poem. It’s the voice of the person reading it. More than 20 years later, and I have chills thinking about it.”
Meanwhile one person said: “When I did SERE in 1991, this reading was on loop with Boots and Electric Orgasm by Yoko Ono for pretty much 48 hours while being interrogated, put in ‘stress positions’ and locked in a tiny box.”
28 Years Later releases in cinemas on June 20, 2025
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