What Was That Strange Ending In ‘28 Years Later’?

Zombie movies don’t usually get trilogies—let alone ones with nearly three decades between instalments. But 28 Years Later, the long-anticipated third chapter from Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, finally rises from the grave. And yes, it fully delivers: rage-fuelled chaos, emotional punches, and a climax that feels less like a conclusion and more like a fever dream.

By the time the final scene rolls around—blonde wigs, cults, a tiara-wearing Jack O’Connell—we’re no longer in the realm of conventional horror. In this movie, Boyle and Garland know exactly what they’re doing. And if you peel back the glittering, grotesque absurdity, the ending of 28 Years Later is less about jump scares and more about what happens when children inherit a world ravaged by unchecked violence, half-remembered ideals, and the ghosts of unspeakable pasts. The wigs aren’t just wigs. The cult isn’t just a gag. This is legacy horror, and the kids are not alright.

Let’s break it all down.

The Movie, in Short: Parenting, Post-Apocalypse

28 Years Later shifts focus from the soldiers and survivors of its predecessors to a far more personal lens: a coming-of-age story, buried beneath blood and decay. The protagonist is Spike (played brilliantly by Alfie Williams), a quiet, observant boy living on Holy Island with his hardened father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and his mysteriously ill mother, Isla (Jodie Comer).

As the traditions of the island, Jamie takes his son out to kill infected as a rite of passage. Spike’s first kill turns out to be a slow-moving, blubbering, worm-eating, kind of “infected”, as now we’re introduced to three types (the fast ones, the slows, and the Alpha). After a confrontation with the Alpha, Spike actually fails to take out any of the unaffected. Once they return to the island, Spike gets even more disappointed watching his father boast and lie about his son’s exploits. And then, the chord fully tethers between father and sone once Spike witnesses his father cheat on Isla with the local schoolmistress. This is where the hero-worship cracks.

Spike then eventually sneaks off the island with his mother Islan, determined to find a doctor (Dr. Kelson) who can help her. This journey—equal parts brutal and tender—becomes the emotional spine of the film.

What follows is a haunting odyssey: pregnant zombies giving birth to healthy babies, a Swedish sailor who doesn’t make it far, and eventually, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), a morbidly serene figure who builds “bone temples” from skulls and talks about death like it’s a form of worship. He diagnoses Isla with terminal cancer. She chooses to die peacefully, Kelson euthanises her, and Spike returns home with the zombie baby they’d rescued—only to leave again, aimless and emotionally wrecked.

And then Jimmy enters.

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What Does Jimmy Want?

The final 15 minutes pull the rug out completely. Spike is alone on the mainland, cornered by a swarm of infected, seemingly done for—until a strange figure appears atop a rock like some bleached-out messiah. It’s Jimmy (Jack O’Connell), grinning under a tiara and blonde wig, flanked by his gang of identically-dressed followers. They dispatch the zombies in acrobatic fashion (um, Power Rangers?) and Teletubbies gone feral.

On the surface? It’s bonkers. Tonal left turns, unsettling costuming, and a last-minute cult reveal straight out of The Wicker Man by way of Skins. But under the madness, there’s meaning. Boyle and Garland aren’t just closing one story—they’re opening a deeper, messier one about memory, loss, and the dangerous allure of the past.

The film begins to fold in on itself: the opening flashback showed Jimmy as a young boy watching Teletubbies while the Rage Virus tears through his home. Now he’s grown up—and created a cult around the remnants of that warped childhood. His group all call themselves Jimmy. They dress the same. They move the same. They kill with joy. They are survivors, sure—but they’re also zealots of some forgotten pop-cultural faith.

The references aren’t subtle. The wigs, the rings, the name—it all feels like a disturbing nod to disgraced UK TV figure Jimmy Savile. As Garland has hinted in interviews, the film’s core idea is about what happens when people retreat into misremembered versions of the past. Jimmy’s cult is nostalgia weaponised. Innocence corrupted. A childhood myth turned into a violent ideology.

So when Jimmy offers Spike a place in the group—saying “Let’s be pals” as the Teletubbies theme eerily echoes in the background—it’s not an offer of safety. It’s the next test. The boy who couldn’t kill a zombie at the start of the film now has to decide: join the cult of regression, or forge something new out of the wreckage.

What Comes Next: The Bone Temple

If that ending felt like a set-up, it’s because it is. The sequel—28 Years Later: The Bone Temple—has already been announced, this time directed by The Marvels’ Nia DaCosta, with Alex Garland staying on as writer. All signs point to a deeper dive into Jimmy’s cult, its ideology, and the psychological consequences of growing up in a society stitched together from trauma and denial.

What does Jimmy want? Why do all his followers look like alternate versions of himself? What happens when Spike, still grieving and impressionable, gets indoctrinated into that kind of thinking?

The real horror of this franchise has always been about the people, not the infected. And this time, it’s not just about surviving the virus. 28 Years Later is a mirror, showing us how broken myths and corrupted memories can become the scariest thing in a world already full of monsters.

And Spike? He’s not just our protagonist. He’s the future or whether he'll rebuild or repeat the generational trauma.