Latest news with #JohnWyndham
Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
After being near-impossible to watch for years, one of the greatest horror movies ever made is streaming free - just in time to watch the sequel
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. As 28 Years Later keeps leaving its mark at the box office, the original 28 Days Later is finally available to stream. Danny Boyle's beloved 2002 classic, considered one of the best horror movies of all time, can be found on Pluto TV (or BBC iPlayer in the UK) right now, and the timing couldn't be better. As fans of the zombie saga know, 28 Days Later hasn't been easy to find over the years. Through several periods it was near impossible to find on any streaming platforms and on-demand, so the only way to watch it was to get hold of a physical copy in second-hand stores. With the long-awaited sequel around the corner, the film was finally made available for digital purchase at the end of last year, and now you can watch it on Pluto TV, a free streaming service with ads owned by Paramount. You don't really need to watch the original film in order to enjoy 28 Years Later, but you should. Over two decades ago, Danny Boyle's grimy horror 28 Days Later set a new standard for zombie apocalypse movies, blending inspirations from John Wyndham's sci-fi horror novel The Day of the Triffids and the sharp social commentary of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Written by Ex Machina and Annihilation director Alex Garland, the film follows a courier (played by the now Oscar winner Cillian Murphy) who wakes up from a coma in a London hospital 28 days after a deadly virus breaks out. Soon he discovers that said virus has turned almost everyone into killer zombies, and his reality has become one of pure survival. After the forgettable 2007 sequel 28 Weeks Later, Boyle and Garland reunited to helm the recently released 28 Years Later, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes. The story picks up almost three decades after the outbreak and follows those still living amongst the infected. Murphy is set to reprise his role in the upcoming sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which continues the story with the newcomer star Alfie Williams. 28 Years Later is now out in cinemas. For more, check out our list for the most exciting upcoming horror movies, and fill out your watchlist with the best zombie movies of all time.
Times
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Triffids on the rampage? Keep calm and have another brandy
The first thing you notice is the drinking. John Wyndham's 1951 novel,The Day of the Triffids, isn't just a classic example of a speculative dystopia, it is a testament to the restorative, energising and life-enhancing qualities of booze. You recall the basics of the story: twentysomething Bill Masen wakes in hospital on the morning he is due to be discharged and finds that everyone else — doctors, nurses, fellow patients — has gone blind after watching the previous night's comet-induced lightshow. Seemingly the solitary sighted person amid the confusion, Bill knows exactly what he needs. A drink. A big one. Masen's first act in this terrifying new world is to find a pub and to steady his nerves with the help of several
The Guardian
07-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Atomfall, the survival game that draws from classic British sci-fi
The year is 1962 and you've just woken up in the shadow of the Windscale (now Sellafield) nuclear power station in Cumbria, five years after its catastrophic meltdown. Trapped in the sizeable quarantine zone surrounding the accident site, you must stay alive long enough to figure out how to escape – a task made rather more challenging by the presence of aggressive cultists, irradiated monsters and highly territorial terror bees. Imagine Stalker, but set in northern England, and you're edging towards what Oxford-based developer Rebellion has in store. Fallout may seem like another obvious inspiration for this irradiated game world, but after playing a two-hour demo, it's clear the game draws more from classic British sci-fi. Here you are, stuck in the picturesque Lake District, with its lush woodlands, gurgling rivers and dry-stone walls. But all around you are the burned-out remains of 1960s cars and tanks, abandoned farm buildings and odd sounds and symbols that suggest something extremely sinister is happening. The development team have mentioned Dr Who, The Wicker Man the novels of John Wyndham as key inspirations, and you can see it in the grubby dislocated scene all around you. Approach a phone box and pick up the ringing handset, and you may hear a disembodied voice warning you about an apparently friendly character you met up the road. Stray into a cave and a ghost-like monster comes at you, infecting you with a paranoid mind virus. This is very much the stuff of Quatermass and Jon Pertwee-era Who. It's not long before I bump into a gang of druids stalking the undergrowth and I'm suddenly thrust into combat. But in the spirit of Stalker, and other survival games such as Escape From Tarkov, I have to rely on improvised melee weapons such as cricket bats and scythes, or on rusty guns that may or may not fire the meagre handfuls of ammo I've managed to accrue. The developers have said they want this game to be about grimly hanging on to life; you're not a super-soldier. Everywhere there are little trinkets to scavenge, from apples to machine parts. When characters aren't trying to clobber you with bats, they may offer you information or trading opportunities. It seems you're free to wander through overgrown farms and ruined industrial buildings looking for clues about what the hell even happened here. Just watch out for the glowing greeny-blue bees nests hanging from trees – those guys are really territorial. And poisonous. Even in my short demo, there's a nice sinister sense of tension in the air. Relying on faulty handguns and explosive devices that you've stuck together, Blue Peter-style, with double-sided sticky tape and things you've found in an abandoned military checkpoint adds a sense of desperation and disaster. I did find some of the menus and weapon selection tricky, and for a game that relies heavily on stealth, it's very easy to accidentally mess up because you've not loaded your shotgun in advance. But then this is the stuff of the survival game: often it's better to hang around in the long grass than engage with the enemy (although sometimes it's not exactly clear where you're in cover and where you're not, so I was giving my location away a lot). Atomfall looks like an interesting amalgam of Stalker, , Resistance: Fall of Man and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, with some role-playing elements lobbed in. Skill points improve your stealth, health and combat efficiency as you progress, and there are plenty of little notes and clues scattered about the wilderness to find. I think a lot is going to depend on just what the mystery at the heart of the game turns out be. Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion What does it mean for an apocalyptic adventure to take place in rural England? We're gonna need more than quaint cottages and enemies with regional accents to capture the horrific majesty of The Triffids, The Daemons or that 70s public information film about playing Frisbee too near an electricity substation. But just the fact that we have a survival adventure with the Lake District as its beautiful, supernaturally charged setting is something to be excited about. Atomfall is out on 27 March
