There’s a good reason 28 Years Later’s trailer music is scary, it’s a literal torture technique

If you watched the trailer for 28 Years Later and felt uncomfortable, that would be because the backing music is originally from a poem that the US Navy still uses to torture its recruits.

Though it’s yet to be seen whether Cillian Murphy will be reprising his role from 28 Days Later, although some have already spotted him in clips, the third instalment of the franchise was shown on Tuesday with a trailer featuring the new leading stars Aaron Taylor Johnson and Jodie Comer.

Little is known about the plot currently, but if you can get past the eerie music in the trailer, there are some hints at what the world looks like 28 years after the zombie virus destroyed civilisation.

28 Years Later’s creepy music is actually a Rudyard Kipling poem

A good song or sound can make or break a film, even in the horror genre. We witnessed this first-hand with flicks such as Insidious, the Scream franchise, Halloween, and Suspiria. Much like them, 28 Years Later has hit the nail on the head with 1903’s Boots poem by Rudyard Kipling.

Though the poem itself is fairly standard, telling a story about the British Army infantryman forced to march in the Second Boer War, a 1915 recording by Taylor Holmes is still widely used today as a psychological technique by the US Navy. Specifically, to train Navy Seals in SERE, Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.

Upon clocking the subtle sounds of Boots, both civilians and Navy Seals alike applauded its inclusion on Twitter and Reddit.

“Whoever decided to put the Taylor Holmes recording of Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘Boots’ that’s used for US Military SERE Training in the #28YearsLater trailer deserves a f*****g award,” one person said.

Can’t stop watching the 28 Years Later trailer. It’s so good, and that damn poem playing over it? Eerie.

— T R O Y D R I Y A N™ (@triggatroyd) December 11, 2024

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Another penned: “28 Years Later trailer is so well done. using Taylor Holmes’s recording of ‘Boots’ was a smart move to build tension. ‘Boots’ has been used to condition military personnel to resist conditioning and torture. the poem is read in a way that simulated the madness of marching for weeks.”

Someone else wrote: “28 years later trailer is so good that I went to find the background audio they used in it and oh boy, how chilling… The way Taylor Holmes performs this poem is just wow.”

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Featured image credit: 20th Century Fox