Review: ’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,’ starring Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman and Chi Lewis-Parry

January 16, 2026

by Carla Hay

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple”

Directed by Nia DaCosta

Culture Representation: Taking place in England, in the year 2030, the horror film “28 Years Later” (the fourth film in the “28” horror series) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asians and black people) who are uninfected survivors and zombies in a post-apocalyptic world.

Culture Clash: A 12-year-boy is kidnapped by a serial killer cult that expects him to murder people, and the cult eventually encounters a mysterious doctor who has been trying to find a cure for the virus that caused the zombie apocalypse.

Culture Audience: “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the “28” zombie movie franchise, and horror movies that adeptly mix social commentary with terror scenes.

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is a rare sequel that is more innovative than its predecessor. Ralph Fiennes and Jack O’Connell give performances that make this unhinged movie an instant horror classic. There’s also some subversive comedy mixed in with all the bloody gore. The movie isn’t perfect though. People need to see 2025’s “28 Years Later” (which was filmed back-to-back with this sequel) to really understand everything in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.”

Directed by Nia DaCosta and written by Alex Garland, “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is the fourth movie in the zombie apocalypse franchise that began with 2002’s “28 Days Later” (directed by Danny Boyle and written by Garland); continued with 2007’s “28 Weeks Later”(directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rowan Joffé, E.L. Lavigne and Jesus Olmo); and jumped forward to the year 2030 for “28 Years Later,” directed by Boyle and written by Garland. The movie franchise follows a group of people living in the United Kingdom during a zombie apocalypse, which began in 2002, because of a virus (called the Rage Virus) that quickly spread through infected lab animals. The movies in the franchise are filmed on location in the United Kingdom.

In this zombie apocalypse, the people become zombies within minutes of being infected through bodily fluids. The zombies can run quickly and have superhuman strength. In “28 Years Later,” the British Isles are under strict quarantine, while continental Europe has the virus contained. This infected area has had no Internet service or phone service in the years since the outbreak. At the end of “28 Years Later,” (spoiler alert), a 12-year-old boy named Spike (played by Alfie Williams) has left his estranged widower father Jamie (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in the Scottish Highlands to live on his own in the Scottish mainland. Spike is then kidnapped by a small cult of murderers.

The cult leader is a deranged fanatic in his mid-30s named Sir Jimmy Crystal (played by O’Connell), who styles himself like deceased media personality/accused pedophile Jimmy Savile (wigs of messy platinum blonde hair, track suits, bad teeth), and he expects his followers (who are all adolescents and young adults) to do the same. “28 Years Later” ends on the cliffhanger of Spike being kidnapped by Sir Jimmy’s cult. “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” shows what happens when Spike is a captive of this cult.

Sir Jimmy’s cult is based in northeast England, where “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” takes place. All of Sir Jimmy’s followers have been given new names by him, with their first names being Jimmy or a variation of Jimmy. The followers call themselves the Fingers. They are also sometimes called the Jimmies.

In the beginning of “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” Jimmy’s followers are Jimmy Shite (played by Connor Newall), Jimmy Jones (played by Maura Bird), Jimmy Snake (played by Ghazi Al Ruffai), Jimmy Jimmy (played by Robert Rhodes), Jimmy Fox (played by Sam Locke), Jimmima (played by Emma Laird) and Jimmy Ink (played by Erin Kellyman). Sir Jimmy uses religion to preach to and control his cult. When Sir Jimmy was 8 years old, his minister father died during the first Rage Virus outbreak and told Sir Jimmy that this zombie apocalypse was part of the Judgment Day that’s taught in Judeo-Christian religions.

Jimmy has brainwashed his followers to believe that he is the son of Satan and forces his followers to commit barbaric acts of torture and murder on uninfected human survivors. The cult members also kill zombies, but they get more pleasure out of killing uninfected survivors. Spike has to go through a cult initiation process of torturing and murdering innocent people, in order to prevent the cult from killing Spike. Spike is terrified and reluctant to participate in the cult’s brutal crimes. Jimmy Ink shows empathy to Spike and is the only one in the cult who is most likely to become Spike’s friend.

Meanwhile, an eccentric loner named Dr. Ian Kelson (played by Fiennes) has been working for years to find a cure for the virus. Dr. Kelson is a physician who lives in a remote place that he calls the Bone Temple, because he has a collection of obelisk-shaped mounds comprised of human skulls, as well as upright beams made out of human bones. All of these bones are his monuments made in memoriam of people who died for various reasons. Dr. Kelson lives in an isolated area.

In “28 Years Later,” Spike and his mother Isla (played by Jodie Comer) met Dr. Kelson when they sought out alternative medical treatment for Isla’s cancer. Isla’s death is one of the most emotionally moving parts of “28 Years Later.” That’s why it’s important to know the context in which she died and how Spike and Dr. Kelson met when they encounter each other again in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.”

Another character from “28 Years Later” who makes his return in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is a 6’9″-tall zombie whom Dr. Kelson has named Samson (played by Chi Lewis-Parry) because of the zombie’s height and long hair. This “alpha male” zombie was the most vicious one shown in “28 Years Later.” However, in “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” Dr. Kelson is able to slowly gain Samson’s trust and tame Samson with a drug mixture that includes morphine, so that Dr. Kelson can experiment on Samson to find a cure for the virus. An unlikely friendship bond develops between Samson and Dr. Kelson.

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” goes back and forth between showing what Sir Jimmy and his cult are doing and showing what Dr. Kelson and Samson are doing, until the worlds collide because of Spike. The movie has some hilarious quirks, such as showing that Dr. Kelson is a big fan of Duran Duran. In his cluttered home, he has Duran Duran’s 1982 “Rio” album on display. He plays Duran Duran vinyl records on a turntable. And he’s shown singing and dancing along to Duran Duran songs such as “Girls on Film,” “Rio” and “Ordinary World.” Dr. Kelson also dances with Samson, with Duran Duran music playing.

Dr. Kelson’s taste in music from the 1980s and 1990s is also shown in the movie’s most memorable scene, where Iron Maiden’s 1982 song “Number of the Beast” is playing. Sir Jimmy also has a thing for nostalgia. He talks fondly about the Teletubbies, the fictional creature stars of the 1998 to 2001 children’s TV show of the same name. People who saw “28 Years Later” might remember that Sir Jimmy was watching the “Teletubbies” TV show with his siblings when the zombie outbreak hit their community.

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” director DaCosta made the confident decision to change the department heads for several technical areas (such as production design, cinematography, music and editing) to people who did not work on “28 Years Later.” These changes give “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” a fresh approach, instead of falling into the sequel trap of re-using the same techniques in telling the continuation of the story. One of the movie’s technical highlights is composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s foreboding score music, which is a superb complement to the well-known soundtrack songs.

Credit should also be given to Garland for crafting a screenplay that’s a departure from the usual compilation of “human versus zombie battles” that tend to be the format of most zombie films. In “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” the biggest villains aren’t the zombies but are humans. “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” also has an interesting way of incorporating religious beliefs (or non-beliefs) into the story. Dr. Kelson is an atheist, Sir Jimmy is a satanist, and things that are taught in Christianity are part of the plot.

Spike’s backstory is already shown in “28 Years Later,” so “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” doesn’t spend a lot of time rehashing it, although the movie does have some flashbacks or references to what happened in “28 Years Later.” What the movie does that’s most unexpected is show a few details about who Samson was before he became infected. It’s a hint of a possible storyline in a sequel.

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” drags a little bit in the middle of the movie that shows a Sir Jimmy and the Fingers doing a home invasion of a farm inhabited by six people: a man in his 20s named Tom (played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis); his pregnant partner Cathy (played by Mirren Mack); a middle-aged man named Jonno (played by Gordon Alexander); an elderly man named George (played by David Sterne); a man in his 30s named Matthew (played by Elliot Benn); and a middle-aged woman named Jane Ji (played by Lynne Anne Rodgers). All of these six inhabitants except one are kidnapped by Jimmy and his cult and taken to another location.

If “28 Years Later” was about Spike’s family problems during this zombie apocalypse, then “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is about contrasting and ultimately conflicting lifestyles of two different “families”: Sir Jimmy and his cult versus Dr. Kelson and his new-found companion Samson. These two factions have different agendas (healing versus harming), and both want Spike on their side. It’s a battle of wits and psychological manipulation, more than physical strength.

Fiennes gives a masterful performance as Dr. Kelson, whose mysterious image from “28 Years Later” slowly reveals that he is actually a deeply complex person who cares about the future of humanity and had a family of own before the zombie apocalypse. (That story is hinted at in photos that he keeps on display in his home.) O’Connell is a scene stealer in his own right and makes Jimmy completely unpredictable, even when his intentions seem to be transparent. “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” has a widely reported cameo appearance from “28 Days Later” star Cillian Murphy, who is in the last 10 minutes of “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.” This appearance announces that Murphy’s Jim character is alive and well and should be a vital part of a sequel in this franchise, which now stands as one of the best zombie franchises in cinema history.

Columbia Pictures released “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” in U.S. cinemas on January 16, 2026.