52 Films by Women Vol 9. 46. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (Director: Nia DaCosta)

 

Pictured: Waiting to receive unholy orders, Lord Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell, how's that) in a scene from the horror sequel, '28 Years Later - The Bone Temple', written by Alex Garland and directed by Nia DaCosta. Still courtesy of Sony Pictures International.

The Marvels and Hedda director Nia DaCosta might have seemed a left-field choice to helm the fourth film in the British ‘28’ horror franchise, 28 Years Later – The Bone Temple but the American delivers the series’ most impactful sequel to date. Filled with specifically British references - the Teletubbies, British Rail, Duran Duran and Jimmy Savile – the film blends an unrelenting sense of dread with leavening humour. At its heart, the film sidelines the threat from the infected – zombies, if you will – to chart the inevitable clash between tracksuit-wearing cult leader Lord Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) and iodine skinned doctor Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), introduced in the 2025 film, 28 Years Later. The principal viewpoint character is no longer young Spike (Alfie Williams). Rather the film cuts between scenes involving alpha infected member Samson (Chi Lewis Parry), Crystal, Kelson and a group of survivors whose lives are interrupted by the merciless Lord Sir Jimmy and his seven ‘Fingers’.

Opening in American cinemas during ‘Martin Luther King Day’ weekend (16-19 January 2026), the film has underperformed relative to predictions ($13m domestic gross after three days and previews). But then America is preoccupied with its own source of dread, the Trump administration, with surges in unregulated ICE activity, superficially anti-illegal migration but resulting in civilian injury and death. If you live in Minnesota, your first impulse isn’t to plan a trip to the movies. The only correlation between Lord Sir Jimmy Crystal and Trump is that Jimmy has adopted the attire of a known child abuser, Sir Jimmy Savile, with his chunky rings and gold chains, while Trump features in the Epstein Files. Jimmy quotes the Teletubbies as scripture. Trump feasts on McDonald’s. Jimmy wears his hair long and blonde – and his followers all have wigs, enacting his brutal orders with ruthless efficiency. Trump dyes his face orange, and his Secretaries of State are entirely subservient at the expense of truth and humanity. Jimmy has fake nomenclature (Lord Sir). Trump has accepted a second-hand Nobel Peace Prize given to Venezuelan María Corina Machado after not winning one himself, having first authorised a raid on Venezuela in contravention of international law. No, folks – nothing to see here. The behaviour of narcissists was ever thus.

The screenwriter of The Bone Temple, Alex Garland, is the true author of the film. DaCosta’s achievement is to realize his vision – and that of producer Danny Boyle – in a visceral and compelling way. The film establishes a tone of unsentimental violence in its opening scene in a deserted water park. Spike is surrounded by the Fingers and has to challenge one of them to take his place. The cocky older Finger toys with Spike, relieving him of his blade. However, Spike is able to retrieve it and stabs his attacker in the leg, piercing an artery. The Finger doesn’t expect to die, but he does, a fountain of blood leaving his body. In its way, the film demonstrates the lethality of knife crime. Spike is given a new name, Jimmy, symbolising his loss of personality. Having survived, Spike is framed in the distance, seen through a bullet hole in one of the park’s wire-glass windows. DaCosta cuts to a long shot of Spike trailing behind the group as they leave the park. A member of the infected attacks the group but is felled with a single blow. We see countryside, black smoke and buildings in the far distance. The Fingers’ violence is just one symptom of a dysfunctional world.

DaCosta then shows in close-up a second act of violence committed by the wounded ‘alpha’ dubbed Samson. He tears a man’s head from his shoulders with ease, appearing to extend the man’s neck. The victim is like a human-sized Stretch Armstrong toy - finally, an American reference. Armed with a blowpipe, Dr Kelson subdues him. Removing the two arrows lodged in Samson’s chest, Dr Kelson compares himself to Androcles. ‘But now you owe me,’ he tells his patient. ‘Only kidding, I’m NHS,’ he adds. ‘There’s no charge.’ A response to that line offers proof of life in the UK cinema audience – huge laughter in London, less so in Reform-voting Kent.

In the process of broiling the flesh from human remains in order to preserve human skulls and add them to his memento mori – the Bone Temple of the title – Kelson hums Duran Duran songs to himself, ‘Girls on Film’ and later ‘Rio’. The eccentricity is a plant. A record collection shown in Act One surely goes off in Act Three.

A group of foragers hunting wildlife fall foul of the infected. Two survivors, Cathy (Mirren Mack) and Tom (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) return to their farmhouse to discover guests, that is, Jimmy Crystal and his gang. The atmosphere is tense. The fairy-wing wearing Jimmima (Emma Laird) performs a Dipsy dance as food is served. Cathy wants the group to leave. A hot pan of boiling water is thrown and violence ensues. Spike leaves the farmhouse to be followed by Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman), a young woman with a tattoo of an eagle on her neck. She is sent to scout for other communities – ‘pastures new’ – annoyed that she has to miss out on ‘charity’, the suspension and removal of skin of survivors in the barn. ‘There’s nothing better out there,’ she tells Spike later. ‘I’ve looked.’

The barn scene shows Jimmy and his Fingers at their worst. But the cockiness of one of their number is punished. ‘That doesn’t sound like normal screaming,’ Jimmy Ink tells Spike, who is outside the barn vomiting. By the end of the night, the number of Fingers is reduced from seven to five. Later still, the number is reduced to four.

Jimmy Crystal’s self-mythologising proves to be his undoing in the second half of the film as he presents himself as the son of old Nick, Satan himself. Jimmy Ink spies Kelson and Samson through her spyglass and concludes that the doctor is Nick. The Lord Sir can’t wait to meet him.

‘I’m in a bit of a bind,’ Jimmy tells Kelson, having met him alone. Kelson understands Jimmy’s need to convince his followers of his authenticity – and the threat of being fed his own intestines. ‘They say the Devil is always up for making a deal,’ he replies.

Pictured: Infected 'alpha' Samson (Chi Lewis Parry, left) enjoys a moment of respite in the company of Dr Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes, right) in a scene from the horror sequel, '28 Years Later - The Bone Temple', written by Alex Garland and directed by Nia DaCosta. Still courtesy of Sony Pictures International.

The most intriguing part of the film is Kelson’s relationship with Samson, injecting him with a concoction that includes morphine. The doctor describes the provision of relief as a quid pro quo, ‘if you understand Latin.’ ‘Or maybe you do,’ he reflects as Samson advances in a less aggressive manner. Having raided the medicine cabinets of properties in a seventy-mile radius, Kelson has a limited supply of pharmaceuticals. He asks Samson for consent to administer a lethal injection – to give the giant permanent relief. Samson then surprises him.

The final part of the film surprises us. Fiennes turns his performance up to eleven in a set piece that is deliriously energising, completely unexpected from what we have seen before. It also cleverly takes Jimmy’s self-mythologising to its logical conclusion.

Lest the audience be disappointed by the paucity of attacks by the infected, there is a scene on an abandoned railway carriage that moves from flashback to imminent threat. It includes the humorous line, ‘I haven’t got a ticket’. The soundtrack is a mix of synthesized time-lapse music as well as notes played on actual bones and the contents of Kelson’s record collection.

Unquestionably, 28 Years Later – The Bone Temple is a political film. ‘Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it,’ one character says in the film’s epilogue, which also includes a reference to the Weimar Republic. You don’t punish the population of a country that allowed evil to prosper, rather create the conditions that give the population to make good. Kelson tells Jimmy that he remembers little of the world before the infection took over, but there was a feeling that the foundations were solid. This is as clear a reference to the international order that is threatened by the fragile ego of the current US President. The pleasures of DaCosta’s films are numerous, and O’Connell’s performance is convincingly menacing, even as Lord Sir Jimmy tells his followers after meeting Kelson, ‘enough of the back chat’.

Reviewed at Curzon Canterbury, Kent, Chaucer Screen, Saturday 17 January 2026, 21:15 screening; also Cineworld Leicester Square, London, IMAX screen, Tuesday 12 December 2025, 19:00, embargoed multi-media screening