I admired 2025's 28 Years Later, a vividly realized foray into dystopian horror from director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland. Director Nia DaCosta takes the reins for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a continuation of the unsettling story Boyle effectively told.
Sorrowful and keenly attuned to issues of mortality, 28 Years Later introduced Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), an isolated physician who built a bone temple from skulls as a memorial to those taken by ravenous, growling zombies who arrived thanks to the spread of the horrible Rage Virus.
The first movie, an extension of 28 Days Later (2008), revolved around 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams), a kid who was learning how to hunt zombies outside one of many heavily protected "safe zones."
Bone Temple begins with young Spike’s induction into the gang that rescued him from a zombie swarm at the end of the last chapter. Williams' Spike quickly learns that gang leader Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) is no savior; he’s a Satan-worshiping sadist who leads seven followers intent on torturing and killing everyone they encounter.
If Earth has become hell, it's no wonder someone has emerged to do the devil's bidding.
The plot eventually brings Jimmy and his followers into Dr. Kelson’s orbit. More on that later.
More gory and graphic than the previous movie, Bone Temple leans heavily into its violence, including a sequence in which the gang invades the home of settlers and stages an assault that may bring the tortures of Texas Chain Saw Massacre to mind. Da Costa (Candyman) establishes a no-mercy approach to the bloody horrors inflicted by the Jimmys.
For the record, Crystal ignores real names, calling everyone in his group "Jimmy."
As the leader of the ruthless Jimmys, O’Connor gives an intensely gripping performance. Intelligent as he is twisted, Crystal radiates charismatic menace. Evil intentions and cleverness make him scarier than any zombie.
Meanwhile, Dr. Kelson tries to subdue an imposing Alpha zombie (Chi Lewis-Parry). Refusing to kill, Kelson hopes to demonstrate that the creature he dubs "Samson" can be dissuaded from ripping the heads off others and munching on their brains.
Kelson hooks Samson on morphine as he tries to develop a drug that will prevent the infected giant from killing without remorse.
Whacky as all this sounds, the budding relationship between Samson and Kelson provides some welcome tenderness, even a bit of eloquence.
The screenplay by Boyle and Garland also finds dissension within the Jimmy ranks. Erin Kellyman portrays Jimmy Ink, a youngster who befriends Spike. She doubts the authenticity of Crystal's claim to be the son of Satan.
It’s difficult to describe the movie’s most riveting, over-the-top sequence without spoilers. DaCosta puts on one hell of a show with what might be called a "bizarre production number." A substantial portion of a preview audience applauded the sequence's twisted comic energy, which is abetted by Fiennes, who serves up a display so crazed, it's difficult not to chuckle. Hildur Guonadottir's score deserves credit, as well.
I don’t think Bone Temple, the second in a proposed trilogy, matches its predecessor, but it stands as a wild and weird sequel that holds its own, providing you like your horror served with a helping of gore.
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