‘28 Years Later’ Cinematographer Describes Filming Intense Chase Scene: “He Was Pounding Towards Us… It Was Terrifying”

Danny Boyle’s upcoming film 28 Years Later features a brutal chase scene that left even the crew on edge. The intense moment happens when Jamie, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and his son Spike, played by Alfie Williams, are being hunted by a deadly new type of infected known as The Alpha.

These evolved infected are faster and stronger, and in one horrifying case, brutal enough to tear off heads.

The scene unfolds as Jamie and Spike try to return to Holy Island using a long, flooded road. Just as they start crossing, The Alpha appears, triggering a high-speed chase through shallow water with nowhere to hide. The tension is real, and it wasn’t just acting, filming the scene was just as nerve-racking behind the camera.

Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle spoke to Variety about the challenges of shooting this sequence. The crew scouted real locations near the coast of England, including Holy Island and parts of North Yorkshire. But shooting on a real causeway turned out to be too dangerous. Running through water could cause injury, and it wasn’t safe for actors, especially with a 13-year-old child actor involved.

Eventually, they built the entire set inside an old vaccination center near Newcastle. It was a huge space where they created a 450-foot-long water-covered road, complete with gates and lighting. The team even controlled the water temperature to keep the actors safe.

To get the right look for the scene, they used sky plates from an astronomy center. This helped them simulate a world with no light pollution, imagining a future with clean skies and no city glow.

For the action shots, the team didn’t hold back. Dod Mantle said they used cranes, dollies, and a special camera setup involving iPhones attached to a crane that wrapped around the actors. Shooting was difficult, fast, and at times frightening. “It’s pretty scary. But we did it,” he said, adding that filming the scene took around three or four days. He described the final result as “beautiful and yet terrifying.”

Another issue was working with young actor Alfie Williams. Since he was underage, he had limited hours on set, which made planning and filming more complex.

The film also introduces new infected types called the Slow-Lows. These slow-moving creatures crawl along the ground, feeding on scraps left by others. While they don’t seem scary at first, they bring a different kind of fear.

Dod Mantle described them as sneaky and unsettling, especially since they move quietly and rely on smell rather than sight. One moment that stood out to him was when a Slow-Low mistakes a shoelace for a worm,“It’s a lovely detail,” he said, pointing out how Boyle mixes fear with subtle moments of humor.

Dod Mantle also talked about his worries around how the infected are killed in the film. Instead of using guns, the characters fight with bows and arrows. At first, he wasn’t sure how this would look on screen. But by using special cameras that slow down the moment of impact, they made each hit feel sharp and dramatic. “It works,” he admitted.

Still, the most unforgettable part for him was shooting the chase scene. “I was more terrified than I thought I was going to be on the causeway,” he recalled. “The way we shot it and lit it was terrifying.”

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