While it’s lacking in the experimentalism of last year’s installment, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a visceral, violent exploration of faith and the battle for humanity. Hope is a dangerous thing to have but can you really live without it? 

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a fascinating entry point as it serves as the second in a trilogy while being the fourth film in a franchise and somehow Nia DaCosta is able to make this fully her own vision without losing any ground from what has come before (and what will come after). DaCosta is a director with such precision and has always understood an emotional architecture no matter the scale of the story being told. With 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the director is stepping into a world not as vastly built as the MCU or honestly even Candyman as it’s more drowned in realism here. Audiences were thrust back into this world with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland just last summer, but the two films were produced back-to-back allowing us to jump right back in. DaCosta never tries to mimic Boyle’s style but eases her own fingerprints all over it. Her background in more strictly horror from Candyman allows this film to feel different from the realist zombie genre Boyle previously delivered. While, personally, I missed the visual flair, messy chaos, and inspired camera choices from Boyle and Anthony Dod Mantle in last year’s entry, it’s much better for the franchise and audiences that it wasn’t trying to do that. Given DaCosta was able to make this more of a strictly horror film infused with comedy, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is both a wonderful bridge in the franchise but also one of its strongest entries. This film may not have as much visual flair or iPhone cinematography as its much more classically structured, but the violence and kills are unreal. The violence levels reminded me so much of early aughts European horror from High Tension to Funny Games with just how mean-spirited and visceral the kills are. While some may say the first kill is played for laughs, I actually think it’s horrific in how it highlights how the Jimmy’s are ruthless, and life truly means nothing to them in a world with seemingly so little human life. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is searching for something to live for; it’s audacious, brutal and full of laughs alongside the best needle drops we’ll hear all year. For a studio film, I could not believe what I was seeing from the cruelty of the violence to the specific type of humor accompanying it. DaCosta continues to prove she’s one to command a screen with her combined skillset of being precise and a master of tonal balance. 

There are plenty of horror films tackling the nature of faith and religion yet what unfolds in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple feels completely fresh and with an absolute brilliant script from Garland, this is both deeply full of action and zombie horror with meaningful, thoughtful observations about human life and ideals. While the 28 world is set in an apocalypse life with so little humans around, Garland allows the characters to breathe and explore thoughts we all have but may be too busy to actually think about. And no matter how much action or zombie related horror goes on around them, the horrors brought on from human to human are always the scariest of all. With all the horrors we are all seeing going on present day, imagine the horrific behaviors that would rise up if there truly was no landscape to prevent a cult like the Jimmy’s from truly becoming a power. Garland in all of his penned films really focuses on this idea of balancing being a good person within the worst possible setting and how people can so easily fall down the wrong path. In 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, he uses this same set up for a thematic structure while using how we yearn for belonging that so many find in religion (or cults). On the flipside of that, how our upbringing associated with religious trauma can stay within us even if we feel distanced from it. There’s a scene between Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) and Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) about upbringing and what life was like before infection where it really landed for me about Jimmy’s relationship not with faith but with religion has imposed his everyday life especially without a functional society around him so his evil intentions can take over. He’s found faith with Satan and chooses to hold on to that faith to guide him on a path towards something, but he can recall growing up, being in church and those routines of Catholic mass. As someone who was raised Catholic and has always identified as an atheist, it felt interesting he felt free to open up to Kelson, who believes strictly in science. It’s not that Jimmy wants to start a belief argument or prove something; he feels he can’t open up to the only people he has community with. The 28 franchise has always implied that Rage virus is some sort of inherited trauma and Jimmy’s backstory, previously shown at the beginning of last year’s film, continues that notion, even if his story is not exactly what we assume happened with his father. 

28 Years Later was Spike’s (Alfie Williams) story and Bone Temple is still following his arc, but the film belongs to Kelson. His ambition to honor the dead and his work to figure out what the Rage virus truly is operate both in opposite of each other and leading to one another. Fiennes is both eccentric and poignant allowing this character to be one of the defining roles of his iconic career. There is so much humanity within this man that Fiennes brings from the script to just his eyes and then line delivery that will certainly make this one of the year’s best performances, no matter how early this film came out. Part of what the Jimmy’s are seeking out within their cult is a purpose and Kelson has purpose in both his memorializing those who are gone and studying the infected. His relationship with an Alpha named Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) takes center stage in Bone Temple and it’s one of the best ‘monster’-human relationships to graze the screen. It’s interesting to parallel the way both Samson and Kelson collect skulls and the way they both sort of use them as totems. In 28 Years Later, we see the deer head staked to a tree and it’s an indicator of an Alpha. While it doesn’t feel clear why they do this, it plays alongside the honoring Kelson does in an opposite effect. In last year’s film, Kelson gives a speech about the importance of the head and it’s fascinating how that takes on life here with Samson as throughout the film we see what Kelson had thought, the infection clouds their mind, it doesn’t overtake their mind. Samson and the others still have their own thoughts, it’s just clouded by the infection. It’s so beautiful to see a story that was clearly written across two films take shape like this as the care and development not just of these characters but what the franchise is saying about humanity has room to breathe and wash over audiences. Lewis-Parry is brilliantly tender and gives Samson so much depth through his performance. The script sets everything up for the character but it shines through every glance and the physicality Lewis-Parry brings. 

What’s fascinating about DaCosta’s entry is that the infected rarely have screentime nor contribute to the biggest scares of the film. Bone Temple continues the notion the real monsters are the humans still uninfected. O’Connell’s Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal is deliciously demented and one of the evilest villains to grace the screen. It’s interesting because the film is filled with humor, mostly from him, he’ll be regarded as campy by some but he’s actually downright terrifying. Everything about Jimmy Crystal is disturbing yet you can’t look away, O’Connell is absolutely breathtaking in the role and continues to deliver. While all the Jimmy’s are great, Erin Kellyman steals the show. While she has an impressive resume, this is a real a-star-is-born moment as she not only entirely kicks ass in every scene she’s allowed to fight but she has such an emotional cadence that you can feel through the screen. Her earnestness is palpable even through the violence surrounding her (and that she delivers). You can sense the reasoning for her being in the group before she even verbalizes the itching for community and the safety within numbers. 

After the best third act climax (I can’t write about it without spoiling it as it’s best seen without context but it’s unreal. DaCosta, Garland, O’Connell, and Fiennes deliver some of the most insane work here, I was kicking my feet), the film takes a turn into what feels like some sort of Marvel set up for a new film. While I’m a lifelong fan of the franchise, I’ve seen every film opening weekend and it’s what made me truly fall in love with Cillian Murphy, I felt slightly put off by this. I itch for the third chapter of Years and was so happy to see Jim back on screen (but where was Naomie!), it just felt not as in tune with what I love about the franchise overall. While I do know it’s necessary for the next installment, it just felt very generic in a franchise that has always challenged traditional storytelling.

While it’s lacking in the experimentalism of last year’s installment, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a visceral, violent exploration of faith and the battle for humanity. Hope is a dangerous thing to have but can you really live without it? 

Grade: B+

Oscar Prospects:
Likely: None
Should be Considered: Best Supporting Actor (Chi Lewis-Parry), Best Sound, Best Make-up & Hairstyling

Where to Watch: In Theaters