28 Years Later

I have recently been enjoying recording the v/o’s for the trailer campaign for Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, which opened in the UK yesterday. Kudos to the teams at Buddha Jones and Empire Design for a brilliant campaign for a compelling and deeply unsettling film, and not the least unsettling aspect of the trailers is the other voice (apart from mine) chanting repetitively in the background.

If you’ve seen the full theatrical trailer you’ll have heard it in all its blood-curdling glory and the producers explained to me that there’s a very interesting story behind it. It’s a 1915 recording of the American actor Taylor Holmes (though sounding very British) reciting Rudyard Kipling’s 1903 poem Boots, which is set in the Boer war and represents soldiers marching towards their fate (hence “Boots, boots, boots, boots” and “There’s no discharge from the war”), and is so unsettling that apparently it is used by the US Navy to train personnel to withstand psychological torture.

It’s a brilliant rendition of the poem and well worth listening to in its entirety here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s9RYG-iMdx0. The way he builds the tension towards the climax is masterly and frankly terrifying. In a nice twist of fate Taylor Holmes, who died in 1959, was awarded Best Voiceover in the 2025 Golden Trailer Awards, and who can begrudge him that?