28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Is An Even More Brutal And Heady Sequel
The second entry in the 28 Years Later trilogy is hard to watch but easy to love.
For many viewers hoping for a non-stop thrill ride with 28 Years Later, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s long-awaited return to the zombie franchise that began with the wildly influential 28 Days Later, its somber third-act turn may have been a bit of a headscratcher. The brawny battle of humans versus Infected was replaced with a meditative tribute to life, memory, and whatever is left of our dwindling humanity.
But as confounding as this pivot may have seemed, 28 Years Later, for all its bombastic action sequences and gory thrills, was a much more thoughtful horror movie than many gave it credit for. It planted the seeds for its deeper themes about the degradation of humanity in the wake of the apocalypse — seeds that come to brutal, bloody bloom in Nia DaCosta’s sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.
The Bone Temple picks up on the more contemplative plot threads of 28 Years Later, anchored by Ralph Fiennes’ sage Dr. Kelson.
A direct sequel to 28 Years Later, The Bone Temple focuses on the story of Spike (Alfie Williams) as he gets inducted into the cult of Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), whose gang of psychopathic children gleefully hunt Infected for sport while terrorizing any human survivors who cross their paths. Sir Lord Jimmy was the child we saw in the terrifying prologue in 28 Years Later, who witnessed the outbreak of the Rage Virus, where his mother was slaughtered while his priest father embraced the masses of Infected. As such, he’s picked up a twisted view of the apocalypse: they’re in hell, and he’s been handpicked by the Devil to do his bidding. This mission sets the Jimmy cult on an unexpected crash course with the gentle Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), whose titular Bone Temple will inevitably draw any Satan worshippers.
The Bone Temple, as suggested by its title and the marketing’s singular focus on Fiennes, picks up both the narrative and thematic threads of Dr. Kelson’s storyline: his dedication to the concepts of memento mori (“remember you must die”) and memento amoris (“remember you must love”), and his strange co-existence with the Alpha Infected he’s dubbed “Samson” (Chi Lewis-Parry). As Spike’s story descends into even darker and bleaker territory than the last movie, Kelson’s takes on a light, contemplative quality that sometimes borders on comedic. In fact, you could even describe Kelson’s storyline as something of a buddy comedy, as Kelson begins experimenting on Samson with psychedelic substances, and discovers something new about the nature of the Rage virus (while discovering that this Infected makes for a surprisingly great trip buddy).
Unexpectedly, The Bone Temple gives us an odd buddy-comedy of sorts.
The two storylines feel a little disparate until they inevitably collide in an explosive third-act climax that toggles between bizarre, funny, and distressing. But DaCosta expertly balances the two wildly differing tones throughout the film, allowing Kelson and Samson’s oddball dynamic to breathe (including one trippy jam session in which the two sit baked under the stars) while piling on the brutal horrors of Spike’s stint with the Jimmys. While DaCosta’s direction isn’t as mindblowingly innovative as Boyle’s (there’s no absurd 20-camera rig), her more straightforward direction doesn’t mean that The Bone Temple isn’t as visceral.
One sequence involving Jimmy and his cult, whom he calls his “Fingers,” is not only the most brutal scene in the franchise’s history, it’s the most harrowingly violent scene in a mainstream horror movie this decade. DaCosta’s steady camera and unflinching gaze make the scene, which reveals the truly diabolical depths that humans can reach, all the more disturbing. It’s the kind of gut-churning, depraved bloodshed that feels like it was ripped from a B-movie gutter, but here it is, in a wide release starring Ralph Fiennes.
Where Boyle’s stylish direction felt like it tapped into the madness inherent in Garland’s script, DaCosta’s grounded, clear-eyed approach unveils the script’s unnerving nihilism. 28 Years Later certainly touched on the cruelty that humans do to each other, but The Bone Temple shows in all its bloody glory the cruelty that was always lying in wait, to be unleashed by some preternatural virus or by an apocalyptic event that throws society’s rules out the window.
Jack O’Connell gives an all-timer villain performance.
O’Connell’s Sir Lord Jimmy is embodies this cruelty in every way: a smiling sadist who dons a raggedy wig and tiara (evoking both ironically and ironically the image of abusive child entertainer Jimmy Savile) while he orders his child soldiers to dole out unspeakable cruelties. That his Fingers are just as zealous as he is (apart from Erin Kellyman’s sympathetic deputy) makes it even harder to watch — especially as Spike finds himself dragged further into their influence.
Alfie Williams continues to be an inspired casting discovery, giving a monumental performance as a terrified child stuck between a rock and a hard place. It makes for the first truly feel-bad event of 2026, and one that makes it hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. Thank goodness, then for Fiennes’ tender, lovely performance as Dr. Kelson, whose sage, meditative presence makes for a much-needed anchor for both the viewer and Spike.
The biggest issue is that, in many ways, The Bone Temple feels like a bridge between two movies. At its worst, it’s a plot-centric movie intended to move its characters around like chess pieces until they’re in the right places for the third film, also to be directed by Boyle. But that’s more likely a fault of Garland’s script than anything, and it’s negligible next to all the awesome horrors and lovely moments of catharsis that The Bone Temple contains.
