It was a true joy to know that as credits rolled on the 2025 Joey Award Winner 28 Years Later that in just six short months we would be getting the sequel. Danny Boyle, Alex Garland, and Nia DaCosta had shot the films sequentially, leaving only a little post work to be done as the third film in the franchise began its theatrical run. So now we’re introduced to a more direct sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, under the direction of newcomer Nia DaCosta, and reuniting us with Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), Spike (Alife Williams), and the mysterious figure introduced at the end of the prior picture, Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell). Each of them navigating the undead countryside in their own manner.

The first thing that’s easy to note is that this film is considerably plottier than the last. There is generally more development on things that were hinted at in the last film, and considerably less time focused on Spike as a character, who was very much the epicenter before. Now we focus more on Dr. Kelson, and his evolving relationship with the Alpha zombie Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). Kelson believes he can rescue Samson, that perhaps the zombie disease can be cured. The method for this is not dissimilar from therapy. Kelson drugs Samson as to make him less threatening, and then talks, dances, and considers the natural world with him. The more time Kelson spends on this project, the less violent Samson seems to become.

Meanwhile, Spike has been roped into a post apocalyptic gang of anarchic children all dressing like Jimmy Saville, a children’s entertainer who was found out to be a pedophile in 2012. Obviously the virus destroying the fabric of any kind of culture means that this exposure never occurred in this world, so these children hold onto this memory of who they thought he was with religious ferocity. Their leader, Jimmy Crystal is a grown man who spins yarns out of the culture he grew up with, using stories of The Tellytubby’s as Biblical parables. He uses this gang of children as a means to inflict torture and pain on any other people he wanders into, waging his religion like a battle axe. The irony of centering a religion on a pedophile and spreading it with deadly fervor is oozing out of every speech that Jimmy Crystal gives.

The movie balances these two stories throughout, bouncing back and forth between Kelson and Samson, and Spike and The Jimmys. One story is one of love, and acceptance through science and therapy. The other centered on the terror that religious dogmas are used to manipulate and destroy. Jimmy Crystal’s religion is a combination of Satanism and nostalgia, a potent cocktail for distorted thinking if ever there was one. Meanwhile Kelson plays his vinyl records and dances with Samson, trying to break through insurmountable barriers to better understand a being that has tried to kill him on more than one occasion.

It seems a strange thing to complain about, but the focus on things happening left me wanting. The last film was a tender character portrait of a boy trying to figure out how to fit in a society that is completely broken. It was a coming of age tale as much as a redemption arch for the world, the world that once was as much as the world that Spike was actively inhabiting. The Bone Temple has a lot more business to get done, which is certainly entertaining, but considerably less moving than 28 Years Later. There’s an insane amount of fun, including the pièce de résistance of the film centered around blasting The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden at full volume, with as fine a pyrotechnics show as to make Bruce Dickinson blush.

This franchise is a rarity in terms of quality in its totality, and as it’s stretched nearly two and a half decades and three directors, it’s impossible to not be amazed by the things this team has done. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a more than worthy addition, and feels like it has a fresh and new take from Director DaCosta. The film does feel notably less British than the last film, something that makes sense coming from a Brooklyn born director, but The Alex Garland script still shines as much as ever. We do have confirmation that there will be yet another 28 Years Later dropping in the near future, so best to be getting all these viewings in so we can be ready for round five of the franchise!

4/5