Warning: SPOILERS for 28 Years Later lie ahead…
Returning director and writing pair Danny Boyle and Alex Garland take some seriously big swings in their long-awaited horror sequel 28 Years Later, and one such swing has proven to be hugely divisive. This particular swing involves the introduction of a new character (or characters) in the movie’s final moments, and now we can take an even better look at them thanks to some newly revealed images from behind the scenes…
Now, look away now if you haven’t seen 28 Years Later, as spoilers are a-comin’. The final moments see our 12-year-old protagonist, Spike, leave the safety of his isolated village behind and head off into the wider, zombie-ravaged world. After being outnumbered by several rage-fueled attackers, Spike runs for it, eventually being rescued by Sir Jimmy Crystal (played by Sinners star Jack O’Connell), the older version of a character we met at the very beginning of the story.
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Sending several of his followers into battle, who proceed to flip, kick, and stab their way through the zombies Power Rangers-style, the moment is starkly different to the rest of the movie, and will have audiences wondering who this Jimmy Crystal is…and why he and his teammates are dressed like English media personality, DJ, and one of history’s most horrifying sexual abusers, Jimmy Savile. While these questions remain, you can take a closer look at Sir Jimmy Crystal and his cult thanks to the images below…
Who Is Sir Jimmy Crystal…and Why Is He Dressed Like That?
The images give us a good look at Sir Jimmy Crystal and his cult of ninja-like Jimmy Savile-dressed followers, with one such follower, Jimmy Shite (all the members are named a variation of Jimmy), played by Connor Newall, shown wielding a modified golf club as a weapon and standing alongside Jack O’Connell’s leader, Jimmy Crystal.
We now know that Sir Jimmy Crystal and his cult, who are alluded to throughout 28 Years Later, will play a major role in next year’s follow-up, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. And while the controversial character largely remains a mystery, Danny Boyle has offered some insight into why he and the others are dressed like Savile. He revealed to Business Insider…
“He’s as much to do with pop culture as he is to do with sportswear, to do with cricket, to do with the honours system. It’s all kind of twisting in this partial remembrance, clinging onto things and then recreating them as an image for followers.”
Writer Alex Garland, meanwhile, explained how the inclusion of the “Jimmies” gang relates to the planned trilogy’s examination of our “regressive” opinion of the past.
“What the film is preoccupied with on some level is the way when we look back, there is amnesia, and there is cherry picking. Also, there are things that are misremembered. What the film is, if you look at individual characters, but you also look at the community that’s represented, and the elements about the communication and the world-building, is a mash of those things: Things that have been forgotten, things that have been cherry-picked, and things that have been misremembered. They’re smushed so together, which carries within it a kind of commentary.”
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is set to be released on January 16, 2026, with a third and final movie now in the works.
Source: Business Insider, Variety
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