This article was originally published on FearHQ.com.
We broke down 28 Years Later's ending earlier this week, but we may have failed to do the weirdness of Jack O'Connell's introduction as "Jimmy Crystal" justice.
In a tonally jarring finale, the actor shows up in a blonde wig, bright tracksuit, and is adorned in tacky jewellery. His cult is decked out in similar garb and proceeds to wipe out the infected in a grindhouse-style sequence featuring spears, nunchucks, and action unlike anything we've seen up until that point.
At first glance, you might just think this is a very weird, unhinged group of survivors. That may be accurate, but those of you in the UK will be aware that Jimmy's cult has based their appearance on Jimmy Savile. And it's proving pretty controversial on that side of the pond.
Who is Jimmy Savile? He was a prominent British TV and radio personality, revealed as one of the UK's most prolific sexual predators following his death in 2011. He abused children and adults of both genders, using his fame and charity work to gain access to vulnerable individuals.
His crimes were committed in schools, hospitals, and even on television. 400 victims were ultimately identified, with the youngest being just 8 years old. The scandal that followed prompted widespread reforms in child protection and exposed systemic cover-ups within the BBC and other organisations.
28 Days Later took place long before Savile was outed as an abuser, and these survivors essentially being trapped in the early 2000s (the UK is cut off from the rest of the world when 28 Years Later begins) means the Jim'll Fix It host is still likely viewed as a beloved figure.
"The role of Jack O’Connell’s character and his family, which is a replacement, really, for the family he loses at the beginning of the film, is to reintroduce evil into what has become a compassionate environment," filmmaker Danny Boyle has explained.
"I asked Alex [Garland, writer] right at the beginning to just tell me what’s the nature of each of the films, and he said that the nature of the first film is about family," he continued. "The second film is about the nature of evil. And you’re about to meet a lot more of them when it’ll be more appropriate to talk about them in the second film."
Savile was evil, alright, but 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple revolving around a cult that worships a disgraced British TV icon was not on our bingo card for this new trilogy.
In 28 Years Later, 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.
28 Years Later arrives in theaters on June 20, 2025.