It’s been over 15 years since the movie was released, and more than 20 since the franchise was initially launched, but fans are still waiting with a mix of patience, hope, and optimism to discover if Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later will ever get that sequel we keep hearing about.
At various stages during the last decade and a half, the third installment in the frenetic zombie saga has either been in active development, back to the drawing board, gathering steam, or completely dead in the water. The most recent update was an encouraging one, but regardless of what happens, it’ll take one hell of an effort to top its predecessor’s opening scene.
Kicking things off with a bang that remains every bit as capable of causing heart palpitations and inducing anxiety now as it did way back when, 28 Weeks Later explodes out of the blocks with a relentless assault by the feral hordes on an isolated farmhouse, culminating in the unforgettable sight of Robert Carlyle’s Don abandoning his wife to her doom in an effort to save his own skin.
It’s visceral, chaotic, bloody, and ultimately heart-wrenching in the space of a few minutes, and based on the responses being drummed up in a Reddit thread remarking on the sheer intensity of the film’s introductory sequence, it hasn’t lost any of its emotional impact either.
As a whole, Weeks may not be as strong from beginning to end as Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, but there’s no denying that it ignites with one of the finest openings in the history of not just the zombie genre, but the entirety of horror itself.
