‘28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ Review: A Brutal, Philosophical Chapter For The Franchise

Civilisation likes to tell itself that it is a shield—that culture, law, and language stand between us and our worst instincts. The 28 Days Later series has always challenged that belief, and its fourth instalment pushes the provocation further than ever before.

Since its 2003 debut, the franchise has shown little interest in zombies as spectacle. Instead, these films have fixated on human behaviour under collapse: the fragile structures we cling to, the hierarchies we hastily rebuild, and the alarming speed at which morality dissolves once consequence disappears. In 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, what unfolds is no longer a story about civilisation breaking down, but an unsettling examination of what remains when civilisation may have only ever been a performance.

PLOT

Set immediately after 28 Years Later, the film follows a world that has stopped hoping for salvation, learning instead to coexist with ruin. In the previous chapter, 12-year-old Spike leaves the quarantined safety of Holy Island, lured by rumours of a doctor on the mainland. That man is Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who has constructed a sprawling ossuary for the dead dubbed the Bone Temple. Guided by the Latin maxim memento mori—a reminder of mortality and the fleeting nature of life—Kelson treats the temple as both sanctuary and a defiant attempt to preserve dignity in a landscape that has long forsaken both grief and meaning.

But Spike’s journey soon uncovers a menace far more terrifying than the infected. Across the mainland roams a gang of uninfected marauders known as the Jimmys, led by the grotesquely charismatic Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) and his seven followers, whom he nicknames “Fingers.” Clad in short blond wigs and brightly coloured tracksuits modeled after the infamous British entertainer Jimmy Savile, they veil their brutality behind pageantry, ritual, and a warped theology that rationalises absolute domination.

It is here that The Bone Temple sharpens its central thesis. The film is less concerned with survival than with the cost of survival. If the infected embody humanity stripped to base hunger, Jimmy Crystal represents something far more sinister: the deliberate, conscious choice to abandon empathy in favour of power. While civilisation may fall apart under pressure, cruelty requires belief—and belief, once formed, is far harder to cure.

Notably, the film features fewer zombies than its predecessors, yet it is no less punishing. The violence inflicted by the Jimmys is more calculated, more nauseating, and harder to dismiss because it leans on intentional malice rather than a blind frenzy.

This brutality is offset by one of the franchise’s strangest and most affecting relationships: Kelson’s tentative bond with an Alpha named Samson. A towering mass of muscle and rage, Samson can tear bodies apart with ease, yet he repeatedly returns to Kelson for morphine. 

Treated with patience and care, their connection deepens as Kelson even shares in the narcotic haze himself. In these moments, the film flirts with a radical idea: that human connection, however unlikely, can survive beyond infection. Gradually, Samson regains a flicker of conscience, hinting at the tantalising possibility of a cure—not as scientific triumph, but as fragile hope born of proximity, trust, and sustained compassion.

CHARACTERS

The philosophical divide at the heart of the film is embodied in two riveting performances. Ralph Fiennes transforms into an erratic man of science, suspended between grief and fanaticism. His Kelson is at once mournful and reckless, tender yet terrifyingly willing to violate ethical boundaries in pursuit of restoration.

It is an all-in portrayal, though Fiennes’ past roles have shown he is more than capable of going the distance. Whether quietly tending to Samson or surrendering to a Bone Temple ritual that borders on the hallucinatory, he fully embraces the unraveling of a mind at war with itself.

Opposite him, Jack O’Connell is chillingly conniving as Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal. Director Nia DaCosta wastes no time establishing his barbarity, rendering sympathy impossible even as he performs warped acts of “charity” that amount to merciless execution. O’Connell’s talent for seductive menace is striking here, recalling his turn in Sinners last year and further cementing his case as one of modern horror’s most compelling antagonists. He should, without question, play more villains.

VISUALS

Visually, the film is as arresting as it is repulsive. Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography oscillates between the stark beauty of the English countryside and the visceral decay festering beneath it. Rolling hills give way to collapsed barns, dismembered bodies, and empty monuments. DaCosta and writer Alex Garland point to simple truth: none of this is supernatural. While the infected may stagger through the landscape as symptoms of catastrophe, the devastation—and the release of the Rage Virus that drives it—are entirely of our own making.

The film’s third act culminates in a literal circle of fire, as Kelson casts himself in the role of the Devil (or, as the Jimmys call him, “Old Nick”). Framed by the monumental scale of the Bone Temple and set to the thunder of Iron Maiden, the spectacle is undeniably hypnotic—equal parts grotesque and awe-inspiring, and difficult not to admire even as it unsettles.

FINAL VERDICT

Franchises tend to decay rather than evolve, repeating familiar horrors until they lose their sting. And yet 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple arrives an improbable triumph. Passing the baton to DaCosta proves that even the most iconic worlds can thrive under fresh authorship, particularly when handled with care, resulting in a film that not only revitalises Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s seminal zombie saga but sinks its teeth into something bracingly contemporary.

In asking which path we choose, The Bone Temple becomes the franchise’s most resonant entry yet. It’s a brutal reminder that what we seek, even at the end of the world, is not domination or survival at any cost, but community, meaning, and a place to call home.

Rating: 8.5/10

For more film reviews, head here.