Sir Jimmy Savile and Sir Jimmy Crystal Connections

Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later is a legacy sequel unlike any other, which makes it a fitting follow-up to the original film, a zombie movie unlike any other. Set, yes, 28 years after the first film’s “rage virus” decimation of London and the rest of England, the movie doesn’t pick up with any of the survivors from the earlier film (though that may be in the offing for future follow-ups) – or anyone from the 2007 sequel 28 Weeks Later, either. Instead, it begins in an island community off the coast of England, where residents have successfully maintained a zombie-free lifestyle, and follows Spike (Alfie Williams), a twelve-year-old about to embark on a local coming-of-age ritual. Spike’s story takes a number of turns, with the movie’s tone shifting from survival horror to coming-of-age drama to reflective philosophizing – and these dramatic shifts don’t let up even after the story seems to be resolved. In fact, even attentive viewers may be wondering what the hell is actually happening in the closing moments of 28 Years Later. Luckily, Decider is here to help with an explanation of the movie’s strange, divisive, sequel-teasing ending.

28 Years Later Plot Summary

Though the movie is unpredictable, 28 Years Later isn’t especially difficult to follow. It just keeps switching what kind of movie you’re following. In an opening prologue, we see a kid called Jimmy menaced during the initial zombie outbreak from 2002, hiding as his minister father welcomes the maniacal hordes as a sign of the apocalypse. Jumping forward 28 years, the movie picks up with what seems like a father-son survival story: Young Spike joins his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) on a trip to the mainland, not to gather food or supplies, but to try out the zombie-hunting archery skills that every kid on their island practices so rigorously. Spike’s mom Isla (Jodie Comer) is bedridden with a mysterious (non-rage-virus) illness that often leaves her disoriented and forgetful, though she has moments of clarity.

Father and son make their trip, during which they encounter an “alpha” zombie who is bigger, stronger, and smarter than the average rage-virus victim. (And also more hung.) After a long overnight ordeal, they just barely escape back to the island via the causeway that’s only available at low tide. But Spike, angry with his father for an extramarital affair and desperate to help his mom, decides to venture back out to the mainland, unauthorized. He plans to bring Isla to see Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who his father dismissed as a madman unable to help with her condition.

So the film pivots again into more of a coming-of-age story, as Spike and Isla make their way across the landscape. They encounter a number of horrors, including a pregnant zombie woman, who somehow gives birth to a non-infected baby, with Isla’s help. They bring the newborn with them, and eventually find Dr. Kelson, who is not a lunatic, but a philosophically-minded loner building an ongoing monument to the victims of the rage virus. He uses an elaborate process to strip the flesh from bone and produce a sterilized skull from each dead body. Dr. Kelson also makes a best guess at a diagnosis for Isla, though he doesn’t have any equipment to confirm it: She likely has terminal cancer and it has probably spread to her brain. She consents to being euthanized, accepting her mortality. Spike places her skull on the monument – the Bone Temple, as it’s called – and returns to his island with the baby in tow.

However, Spike opts not to rejoin society. His world having opened up from a cloistered existence, he is determined to further explore the mainland, even if it means risking death. He leaves the baby and a note for his father, and sets back out on the countryside.

This would be a perfectly satisfying ending to an unusually reflective and insightful horror movie: Rather than living in fear of death and protecting himself at all costs, Spike, like his mother, accepts death’s natural role in life. He does so as he begins to explore his own place in this world, which may not be in a sheltered island community. Like so many coming-of-age stories, it leaves the lead character shaken, but perhaps more prepared for adulthood. It’s a lovely, unexpected note for a zombie legacy sequel to strike.

But the movie doesn’t exactly end there.

28 Years Later Ending Explained: Jimmy Crystal and Jimmy Savile

The film’s final scene moves ahead to, yes, 28 days later. Spike is still on his own, still alive – but when he attracts the attention of a roving pack of infected zombies, things look pretty grim. Just as the zombies are about to descend upon him, a group of similarly attired warriors appear and gleefully dispatch the infected. The scene juts out from the tone of the movie’s proper ending, playing like something out of a Guy Ritchie movie (specifically The Gentlemen), with the tracksuited group led by Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) – this, it turns out, is the Jimmy from the opening scene.

The movie uses a clever bit of misdirection early on; Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character is named “Jamie,” which means it’s easy to mistakenly assume that he’s a grown-up version of Jimmy from the earlier scene (though he and Spike do find an infected tagged with the name “Jimmy” during their mainland journey). But no, Jimmy is an entirely separate person who we’ve not seen in between these bookending scenes. He also carries a bit of British cultural baggage that won’t scan to most U.S. viewers.

Sir Jimmy Crystal’s style is specifically patterned after Sir Jimmy Savile, an English DJ and host of music shows like Top of the Pops – basically the U.K. equivalent of an MTV VJ, though he was well into his fifties by the time music videos became the norm. A fixture of British media and beloved for his eccentric appearance and charity work — he was made a Knight Commander by Pope John Paul II (!!) and knighted in 1990 (after The Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher lobbied on his behalf, despite warnings from British pols) — Savile died in 2011. He was then posthumously accused of sexual abuse by over 300 people, including of children. Investigations have uncovered literally hundreds of allegations (some of which were actually made before his death, but many more followed afterward).

(For more details on this real life horror show, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story was released on Netflix back in 2022, and is still streaming on the platform as of this writing.)

So what does it mean that Sir Jimmy Crystal takes Jimmy Savile as his fashion icon? On one hand, in the world of these movies, England as we know it essentially ended back in 2002 (or maybe in 2007, when it briefly seemed in 28 Weeks Later as if the zombie infections might have been conquered). Savile’s misconduct wasn’t widely reported until years after that. Is this simply an uncomfortable signal that Sir Jimmy Crystal is frozen in an early-2000s mindset, or is it supposed to signify some greater menace to audience members who recognize (and may be repulsed by) Savile’s sensibility? The fact that Sir Jimmy commands a battalion of seemingly like-minded, possibly cult-minded foot soldiers doesn’t seem to bode well. But for the moment, these people have saved Spike. Is the fact that he’s still a child even more cause for alarm? That kind of development would mirror the end of the original 28 Days Later, where our heroes came upon a quasi-military operation that seemed determine to repopulate through sex trafficking. In other words, human monsters reverting to exploitation at the first opportunity. Is Sir Jimmy Crystal an updated and more insidious version of that dynamic?

Impossible to say at the moment. Essentially, 28 Years Later really ends with a proper introduction to a character who will supposedly feature heavily in the sequel, subtitled The Bone Temple, which is already completed and coming out in January. (Boyle did not direct it, but Alex Garland wrote it.) A third film, which Boyle would return to direct, has been planned but not yet greenlit. Whatever happens, the scene leaves 28 Years Later on a disconcerting note, and one that threatens to undo the goodwill generated by its emotionally powered “proper” ending. But then, that’s also a signature of the movie, and the wild world it’s depicting.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.