28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a horror film for our times
While it may lack the shocks and stylistic flair of its predecessor, the sequel finds its own story to tell.
As the malevolent villain of 28 Year Later: The Bone Temple looks at the monument of skulls that gives the film its name, he tells the kind doctor that constructed it that he appreciates the architecture.
In that are the two threads, and the conflict, that make up The Bone Temple.
One man has built a memorial, clinging to the last embers of hope and a kinder past, and the other sees an altar to the nihilistic violence and savagery of the new world.
Chi Lewis-Parry as Samson and Ralph Fiennes as Dr Kelson in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.
Supplied / Sony Pictures
Nia DaCosta (Little Woods, The Marvels) takes over directing for this part-sequel, part-companion piece filmed back-to-back with Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later (2025) and the fourth film in the post-apocalyptic 28 Days Later zombie horror franchise.
Its plot is tied closely to its predecessor, the action beginning more-or-less right after the last one ends. It does, however, tell a very different kind of story.
The film places Ralph Fiennes (Conclave, Schindler's List) at its centre as he reprises the role Dr Ian Kelson, a GP who has survived for nearly three decades in the zombie-ravaged British countryside, while painstakingly cleaning and stacking skulls.
The quiet dignity and calmness of Fiennes' performance was stunning in 28 Years Later, and Bone Temple serves up more of it, with no less charm, but perhaps a bit less novelty. A climactic scene pushes the role into a place so different (and fun) that it seems determined to serve as counterpoint to 28 Years' quiet, emotional peak.
It's worth noting here that The Bone Temple is barely a zombie horror.
Kelson spends much of the early plot getting high, dancing and star gazing in an offbeat setup with the aptly named Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry also reprising the role) - an enormous "Alpha" infected whose signature is tearing the heads off his victims (spines included) - and who Kelson is experimenting on to find a cure.
The film deploys a few jump scares and a smattering of scenes to remind us what franchise we're watching, but is far more concerned with the variety of horror people inflict on one another.
There is, however, a particular flavour of fear that comes from watching someone happily flaying the skin off someone else that's very different to the violence of mindless hordes - one that some would argue is fundamentally scarier.
This is the flavour the film's second thread leans into, as wide-eye teen Spike (Alfie Williams) - 28 Years' coming-of-age hero - finds himself being initiated into a roaming, murderous gang of blonde-wig-wearing, Jimmy Savile-themed satanists who ape fragments of long-lost pop culture.
Maura Bird as Jimmy Jones, Alfie Williams as Spike, Jack O'Connell as Sir Jimmy Crystal, and Erin Kellyman as Jimmy Ink in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.
Supplied / Sony Pictures
The real focus here is "Sir Lord" Jimmy Crystal, played by Jack O'Connell (Sinners, Lady Chatterley's Lover), the terrifying and sadistic leader of the cult.
O'Connell manages to take a character that lurches from overtly menacing to some of the film's funniest lines (including as he contemplates the infinite regress of Teletubbies watching themselves on their own stomachs), while making it feel coherent.
While Bone Temple - very understandably - shares much of the baseline style of Boyle's piece, it's is a cleaner, more modern, and straight-forward looking affair.
It omits the striking avant-garde sequences of its predecessor and much of its grimy, DIY quality, opting for a different look for a tonally very different film.
It's also more conventionally structured - which makes it a both quicker, punchier watch and less exciting than 28 Years' twisting epic plot.
Jack O'Connell and Nia DaCosta in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.
Supplied / Sony Pictures
Bone Temple's real hurdle, though, is that perhaps it does not feel like a thing that stands on its own: its plots, themes, characters finding so much of their origins in its predecessor.
It's a film that earnestly and genuinely mines deeper into Boyle's world and ideas, and brings them into the present, but it's hard not to compare it to the idiosyncratic highs of 28 Years.
It does, however, feel perfectly timed - and like its look, its themes also feel more modern.
After all, a tale about the conflict between optimists looking back to order and kindness, and cynics who believe that the rules are gone and only might is right - while somewhat familiar at this point - truly feels like it's for our times.
