The chilling new trailer for 28 Years Later dropped yesterday, and it delivered an unsettling punch that promises an intense and gripping return to the franchise.
Director Danny Boyle and Alex Garland reunited for the first time since 28 Days Later and this sequel is going to dive deeper into the chaos and destruction brought on by the Rage virus.
While the trailer offers plenty of intense footage of panicked survivors trying to survive the Rage-infected hordes, the true gut-punch comes from the eerie audio that accompanies the visuals.
The trailer features an ominous voice reciting Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Boots,” as read by Taylor Holmes in 1915. The distorted, repetitive rhythm of the poem creates a sense of utter dread, and it underscores the devastation depicted on-screen.
Kipling’s “Boots” was originally written to convey the relentless monotony and psychological strain of soldiers marching to war, and it takes on a darker resonance here.
The use of this poem in the trailer is extremely effective as in invokes a complete sense of dread. In the trailer for the film, it mirrors the ceaseless despair of a world ravaged by the virus. The reading by Holmes is no ordinary recital either, as it has a dark legacy.
The U.S. Navy employs this very recording in its grueling Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training. Retired Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, in his book The Making of a Navy SEAL, described this exercise as “far and away the most intense training I’d encountered so far.”
Trainees are subjected to the relentless repetition of Holmes’ recitation, preparing them for mental and emotional endurance under extreme duress.
The poem’s militaristic ties strengthen its significance in the film franchise, where war and the military have always played pivotal roles.
In Ralph Anthony Duran’s A Handbook to the Poetry of Rudyard Kipling, it’s explained that the first four words of each line in “Boots” “should be read slowly, at the rate of two words to a second. This will give the time at which a foot soldier normally marches.”
But the trailer disrupts this structure entirely, reflecting the disarray and unpredictability of a world plunged into apocalyptic chaos.
With its haunting imagery and unnerving use of Kipling’s poem, the 28 Years Later trailer sets a chilling tone for this long-awaited sequel.
The synopsis reads: “‘Time didn’t heal anything.’ Sometime after the events of 28 Weeks Later, the Rage Virus has returned, and a group of survivors must survive in a world ravaged by hordes of the infected.
“Shot on an iPhone 15 Pro Max with the aide of numerous specialised attachments. Cillian Murphy returns as Jim, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, Jack O’Connell, Erin Kellyman, and Ralph Fiennes.”
28 Years Later is set to be unleashed in theaters on June 20, 2025 from Sony.
Via: /Film
2024-12-11 17:26:00
