28 Years Later Fans Are Having A Ball Reacting To Giant Alpha Dongs, But I Fear The Director's BTS Comments May Disappoint Them

Close-up of wide-eyed soldier with helmet lights in 28 Years Later
(Image credit: Sony Pictures)

Mild spoilers below for 28 Years Later for anyone who hasn’t watched, so proceed with caution.

I doubt anyone expected to come out of the first official weekend of summer with this question: "Will any upcoming horror movies give audiences more shots of low-hanging undead dicks than 28 Years Later?" Yet there it is, all asked and everything.

Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland's long-awaited sequel quickly became a divisive one — read our review — on its way to reaching second place at the box office, thanks in part to its final 10-15 minutes being as bonkers as any in other movies releasing in 2025. But one thing that seemingly everyone can agree on is that the film features a wild amount of gnarly nudity, represented most notably by the infected’s massive Alpha leaders called Samson and Berserker.

The pair of vicious antagonists are slightly evolved behaviorally, and are impressively evolved in the physical sense, with their imposing height just making their imposing crotches closer to normal humans’ eye levels. To be expected, plenty of theater-goers whose eyeballs witnessed all the rage-fueled penises had some hilariously transparent thoughts to share on X. Such as this one below:

You know the old saying: one good reaction to a plump zombie dick deserves another.

As it goes with social media, themed reactions like the above were prevalent, with several different variations making it clear that a lot of people felt more than little hot and bothered by the nudity on display. Despite the fact that, you know, the dangling manhood is attached to most deadly rage-infected beasts out there. Hornballs are gonna hornball, and I'm not here to be the judge, jury, or sexecutioner.

Now feast your eyes on this blood-moistened smattering of other reactions to 28 Years Later's most phallic threats:

  • You are not prepared for the sheer volume of penis #28YearsLater is packing - @DavidOpie
  • You’ll either love or hate 28 Years Later. Side note. Why did they build the alphas like… that? - @miicheladapapi
  • So many self-proclaimed “Alphas” are gonna go home feeling insecure, after watching 28 YEARS LATER 😂 - @Sye_Lokata
  • i see why they called him Alpha #28YearsLater - @cherryrckcndy
  • 28 Years Later was fucking great and all but why was that alpha so damn hung omg just slinging that thing around chasin people - @lovedawoon
  • Does anyone know why the Alpha zombie has two credits in 28 Years Later? - @bradmiska

As far as the "Why?" side of things goes, I can only assume that there aren't a plethora of organic ways to make the mostly brainless and entirely nude Alphas stick out amidst their monstrous breathren. (Not everyone can be a glowing orange weirdo like Ralph Feinnes' character.) And so if you're limited to just the body's visuals, there's nothing more fitting than a literal example of Big Dick Energy.

While most of the X reactions concerning the Alpha dongs immediately dove into the gutter, I have to appreciate this two-part reaction that starts off highbrow-ish enough before going low.

  • not at all what i expected. and just when i thought i had it figured it out, it swerved again. not mad at it, though. #28YearsLater was visually stunning, gripping, and unexpected. ...[second post]...ALSO we all saw what that alpha was workin’ with right??? 👀😳 - @meganxmarie

It only makes sense for the final reaction here to be the one seen below.

Had the Samson Alpha's name been "Nathan's" instead, that might have skewed too close to actual hot dogs to avoid such comparisons.

Danny Boyle Confirms 28 Years Later's Alpha Penises And More Were All Prosthetic

While I doubt this admission will actively hurt the social lives of the actors who portrayed the film's Alphas — Chi Lewis-Parry and Chris Gregory — director Danny Boyle cleared up any questions about how 28 Years Later featured so many nude actors working with the wildly talented young actor Alfie Williams, telling ComicBook.com that all of the nude infected aren't actually nude. In his words:

This was a salutory moment via our intimacy coordinator that when you have a child of 12 present, all genitals, male and female, have to be fake. They can’t be real. [The] Child Sex Offenses Act would put me in prison if I allowed him [Alfie] to see real genitals [laughs]. So he has to look at absolutely false photo-real genitals, created by a prosthetics company.

Pour one out for all the men, women and beyond who no longer feel a certain kind of way after hearing that the Alphas' dongs were crafted rather than grown organically. I suppose one can walk away from this with the belief that the prosthetic penises were actually hiding even larger dicks, though I don't expect the Bone Temple sequel releasing in 2026 to provide an answer.

28 Years Later is currently in theaters, and I'm sure there's already a petition out there for a life-sized Alpha action figure.

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Nick Venable
Assistant Managing Editor

Nick is a Cajun Country native and an Assistant Managing Editor with a focus on TV and features. His humble origin story with CinemaBlend began all the way back in the pre-streaming era, circa 2009, as a freelancing DVD reviewer and TV recapper.  Nick leapfrogged over to the small screen to cover more and more television news and interviews, eventually taking over the section for the current era and covering topics like Yellowstone, The Walking Dead and horror. Born in Louisiana and currently living in Texas — Who Dat Nation over America’s Team all day, all night — Nick spent several years in the hospitality industry, and also worked as a 911 operator. If you ever happened to hear his music or read his comics/short stories, you have his sympathy.

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