Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) spends a lot of time alone. Covered in iodine to ward off the zombie virus that has ravaged England for three decades, he sometimes dances alone in his ossuary – the Temple of Bones – to the music of his youth, Duran Duran. He stares at old photos as he listens to the “Girls on Film” lyric, “and wonder how she got here drowning again,” as it rambles around his shaved skull.
But Dr. Kelson won’t cry about yesterday, as he tries to survive in this now ordinary world, isolated and primitive, where zombies roam the countryside, and pockets of human survivors quietly search. “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” directed by Nia DaCosta, picks up where 2025’s “28 Years Later,” directed by Danny Boyle, left off. Boyle and writer Alex Garland created the series in 2002 with the film 28 Days Later, which sparked the zombie craze of the 2000s. Garland is writing the scripts for the second part of the “28 Years” film series, a planned trilogy.
In “The Bone Temple”, it’s not the zombies that one should worry about, but Jimmy. Our young hero Spike (Alfie Williams), having abandoned the secluded safety of his island home in the wake of his mother’s death, finds himself at the mercy of this merry band of bloodthirsty con artists, patronized by a sadistic Manson-style leader, Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell).
Dressed in platinum blonde wigs and colorful tracksuits, these people imitate the look of the late English TV personality and notorious sexual predator Jimmy Savile. Sir Jamie is obsessed with television as a child, before his reality is torn apart. Sir Jimmy grew up in chaos and bloodshed, taking direction from a demonic voice in his head called Old Nick, and his bewildered teenage followers, the Fingers, leave a bloody trail in their wake, handing out “charity,” as they call it, and indiscriminately tormenting a few mortals unlucky enough to stand up to their vaunted, ridiculous nihilism.
Spike is a terrified little boy, but he is skilled with a sword and has strong survival instincts. Joining the fingers is his way of continuing to survive another day. While wandering through the same area of northern England, they bump into Dr. Kelson, who spends his days hanging out with a heavily drugged alpha zombie, Samson (Che-Louis Barry, giving an unexpectedly beautiful performance), hoping to find a way to bring him back to life.
In this sequel, DaCosta faces the difficult task of continuing the story with established characters, then leaving us with new characters and more stories to tell. What is striking is her ability to keep the thread of tension taut, even when we jump between characters and locations, and she compensates for brutality and noise with stillness and calm. The film is shockingly violent and gory, but there are also deeply poetic moments and images that emerge like wildflowers in a field.
She has some dazzling material to work with – the exotic beauty of the skeletal temple, where eye-catching orange kilts lean into psychedelic Samson, and the distinct style of the Jimmys, with their “Children of the Corn” hair, gold chains, tiaras, and fairy wings. Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt brings his own visual language to the film as well. While Will’s iPhone camera rigs pinch and zoom around the landscape with an almost toy-like motion, Bobbitt’s camera shakes with zombie fury and then settles, lulling us into and out of violence and peace.
In “The Temple of Bones,” Garland brings together faith and reason and how they collide in a world where foundations and “order” have been torn apart. Believing in something bigger than ourselves can feel good even if it is false, because being human contains all the beauty, grace, and violence imaginable. Religion is just theater, or at least a great rock show.
“The Bone Temple” is a very sad film, imbued with nostalgia and a very specific British cultural memory: Teletubbies, Duran Duran, Iron Maiden, Radiohead, Jimmy Savile, Winston Churchill. There is a sweetness to the comfort of childhood touchstones and shared history in a world psychotic by death and destruction. These small reminders of our humanity are adjacent to Kelson’s practice of honoring the dead as a way to honor life.
Despite the nostalgia, Garland knows we can’t go back to the way things were. All we can do is remember – or “never forget,” as some famously put it. The reality is bleak and riven by violence and misinformation, but Garland allows a glimmer of hope. If zombies are mass psychosis, a contagious disease that spreads from person to person, then perhaps there is a way to cure it, a way to wake up from the fog. It’s a nice idea, especially in this highly unusual world.
Katie Walsh is a critic for the Tribune News Service.
“28 Years Later: Temple of Bones” – 3.5 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: R (for strong violence, gore, graphic nudity, language throughout, and brief drug use)
Running time: 1:49
How to watch: In theaters January 16