Movie Review: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

I was not as over-the-moon for Danny Boyle’s 2025 28 Years Later as other critics, but there were elements that I did like. I liked Ralph Fiennes as a quietly deranged doctor who has built a shrine of bones to those who have perished in this apocalyptic zombie hellscape. I liked the idea of a seemingly indestructible zombie named Samson who terrified zombies as much as humans. I like the film’s grim tone, bold themes, and its ending, where we are introduced to Jack O’Connell’s Jimmy Crystal and his group of blonde-haired psychos, The Jimmies, who are inspired by the sexual abuser and British TV personality Jimmy Savile. These were all supporting characters and plots in 28 Years Later, but they made the film intriguing when the main plot of the film, involving a boy named Spike and his mother searching for a cure for his mother’s illness, lacked any excitement.

Nia DaCosta’s follow-up, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, takes all the aspects of 28 Years Later that I liked and was interested in and makes them the focal point of the movie, delivering what I consider to be the best film of the franchise. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a dark, bleak, bloody journey into the hellscape of post-apocalyptic Britain.

There are two main storylines in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. The most prominent follows Dr. Kelson (Fiennes, in a remarkable performance), a brilliant doctor, numb to the carnage and violence of the world, who has built a temple of skulls and bones. He encounters super-zombie Samson (Chi Lewis-Perry), and when Samson doesn’t attempt to rip his head off right away, Kelson starts to hypothesize about what is going on in his and the other infected people’s brains. The two start to form an unlikely bond as Kelson tries to find a potential cure.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Crystal (O’Connell, brilliantly chilling) and his gang are causing as much mayhem as the infected. They are a vile, brutal bunch of blonde-wigged, tracksuit-wearing psychos who seemingly kill anyone they encounter simply because they exist. They have taken Spike (Alfie Williams) under their wing, though he is revolted by the group and is looking for an escape.

Within the opening minutes of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, DaCosta sets the tone for the brutality and violence we are going to witness. We are introduced to Crystal and The Jimmies in an abandoned in-ground pool, where a knife fight between Spike and another Jimmy over who will stay in the group is taking place. The fight ends in bloodshed as Crystal looks on with glee. Moments later, we are introduced to Samson in a sequence where he rips a man’s head and spinal cord out and starts eating the brain. It’s one hell of an introduction for the monstrous creature, and the film only gets bloodier and gorier from there.

Since the first film in 2003, the 28 Days/Weeks/Years franchise has established itself in a bleak world that only worsens the longer the virus is around. This isn’t so much a franchise about surviving zombies, but about humanity in times of crises and the fight between good and evil. DaCosta understands that at this point, this is Hell on Earth, and there is only a sliver of humanity left. The Bone Temple is a dark film about the last shred of humanity against an overwhelming reign of terror and violence. You never feel like any of the characters are safe and are almost waiting for their demise. Even the final scene of the film, which serves as an excellent cliffhanger for what is to come from the franchise, is not a scene of hope or lightness, but rather a reminder that this war is seemingly never-ending for the good and that they will always be fighting for the rest of their lives. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple might be dark and bleak, but it is impeccably made and an outstanding start to the 2026 movie year.

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