Boyle and zombie flick's stars in city for premiere

A BLACK carpet - a fitting colour for a post-apocalyptic horror movie - was rolled out at Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle for Thursday evening's special gala screening of Danny Boyle's new movie 28 Years Later.

- BARBARA HODGSON

The Oscar winning director himself was there for the preview - set to show on all three main screens - and while dark and gory scenes were waiting inside, the atmosphere on the carpet was buzzing.

The decision to hold a Newcastle premiere for the zombie chiller, which Boyle and his team shot in the region over a period several months was met with huge excitement from the off, not least among the hundreds of locals given film roles as extras and many of them, and the crew, were invited to the preview - a day before the film's nationwide release and the night after Boyle and core cast attended its London premiere.

Boyle was joined by Alfie Williams, the now 14-year-old from Gateshead who turns out to be the star of the whole show, making his feature film debut in the lead role of Spike, the son of couple Isla and Jamie played by Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. And Alfie's time in the spotlight is set to continue.

As Boyle revealed, a follow-up to 28 Years is already made and a third film, bringing back Cillian Murphy, is due to follow with the director keen to make a return north. Speaking to The Journal, he summed up his experience of filming here, saying: "It was magic."

He added: "And why shouldn't it be: there were some great places, some wonderful landscapes, a great city and an extraordinary starting point for our story." The sequel to his 2002 zombie-virus hit 28 Days Later sees Alfie's family form part of a community of survivors on Holy Island which plays a major role in the film along with swathes of rural Northumberland and here they are cut off from the infected mainland by the causeway which needs defending at low tide.