Danny Boyle Filmed ‘28 Years Later’ With a 20 Iphone Rig to Heighten Horror “You Feel Like You’re in the Room”

Danny Boyle isn’t easing up for his return to the infected. Instead, the 28 Days Later director is leaning all the way into discomfort and this time, he’s doing it with a camera rig made entirely of iPhones.

In an interview with IGN, Boyle revealed that some of the most brutal moments in 28 Years Later, the upcoming sequel to his 2002 horror landmark, were filmed using a 20-iPhone setup. The unconventional rig helped generate a raw, immediate feeling and unsettled even the cast. “It’s a wonderful tool for actors to keep them guessing, especially experienced actors,” Boyle said. “They get to know where the cameras are and they get to know lenses and they get to know what they’re doing. But this throws them. It’s like, ‘What!?’”

The sequel follows survivors holed up on a fortified island off the English coast. When disaster strikes, a father and son are forced to cross an infected mainland. The cast includes Ralph Fiennes, Jodie Comer, Jack O’Connell, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

Boyle and longtime collaborator Anthony Dod Mantle first shook up horror cinema in 2002 by shooting on DV tape, mimicking the feel of found footage. The idea was that if a real outbreak occurred, handheld devices would capture the chaos. Now, Boyle says, that means smartphones. “You feel like you’re in the room with Jodie Comer and her son, venting her rage at Aaron Taylor Johnson, like you’re in the abandoned train with the naked alpha and the unzipped spine and head,” Boyle told IGN.

Aside from the disorientation, there’s technical value too. With multiple lenses capturing nearly 180 degrees of space, the audience is constantly scanning the screen, infected could be anywhere. “We thought we’d benefit from the unease that the first film created about the speed and the velocity, the visceral [aspect] of the way the infected were depicted,” Boyle added. “They could be anywhere… you have to keep scanning, looking around for them, really.”

28 Years Later hits cinemas on June 20. Boyle isn’t revisiting the past he’s escalating the threat, and the tension is more immediate than ever.

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