“28 Years Later” is a strange, experimental take on the zombie genre and one of 2025’s best films. It served as the third installment in the horror franchise that began with 2002’s “28 Days Later” and introduced a new cast of characters for a planned trilogy. Last year’s entry ended with an outrageous sequence in which young protagonist Spike (Alfie Williams) was rescued by a gang of acrobatic zombie-killing ninjas dressed to resemble Jimmy Savile, a beloved UK media personality who was eventually outed as one of the country’s most notorious pedophiles.
“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” picks up right where the gonzo finale left off as Spike quickly realizes his new acquaintances can be just as brutal to their fellow uninfected humans. The group, whose seven fighters are known as the Fingers, is led by charismatic psychopath Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell). Spike finds himself forced into a fight to the death with one of the Fingers for a chance to join their ranks — or be killed on the spot.
Meanwhile, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) resides in the eponymous Bone Temple, an ossuary made of human remains intended to honor those who have died during the epidemic. Kelson maintains a steadfast belief that the infected are simply sick people rather than mindless zombies, preferring to sedate rather than kill them. He eventually begins to study the infected Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), a hulking “Alpha” with enhanced intelligence and strength who shows signs of a latent humanity.
Alex Garland’s script frames Sir Jimmy and Kelson as fascinating ideological counterpoints. Jimmy maintains the cultish devotion of his Fingers by styling himself as the son of Satan, or Old Nick, who he claims unleashed the Rage Virus onto the world to destroy humanity. His followers listen with childlike awe as he weaves an elaborate mythology to convince them he’s an infallible, divinely inspired messiah — and that their duty is to roam the countryside, brutally slaughtering the uninfected as a twisted, sacrificial form of “charity.” Even the Savile cosplay reads as part of the same perverted nostalgia, a warped relic of the lost world repurposed into ritual.
It’s impossible to tell where Jimmy’s delusion ends and where his manipulation begins. He is clearly a deranged but shrewd demagogue, whose bleach-blond mane and us-versus-them paranoia evoke a certain brand of modern right-wing populism.
Kelson, on the other hand, is a self-identified atheist who places his faith only in reason and science. He cherishes the past even as his memories of it have faded, looking wistfully at old photographs and blasting Duran Duran and Radiohead records. Jimmy views himself as a soldier in Old Nick’s unholy war against a doomed human race, while Kelson honors its remnants and eventually finds purpose in helping shape its future.
Outstanding performances by Jack O’Connell and Ralph Fiennes help bring these characters to life even more vividly. O’Connell makes Jimmy utterly sadistic yet magnetic to watch, and his purple-prose sermons are frequently funny in the bleakest possible way. Fiennes gives Kelson a warmth and gentle humor that keeps the film from sinking into pure despair — and with a much larger role than he had in the prior film, he’s able to complicate an already-excellent performance with layers of loneliness, doubt and resolve.
“The Bone Temple” is directed by Nia DaCosta, who is taking over for Danny Boyle after his work on the prior film. Her approach is far more restrained, making the sequel feel closer to a traditional horror film than Boyle’s eccentric coming-of-age story. Gone are the freeze-frame flourishes, iPhone cinematography and bursts of intercut historical footage, replaced by steadier camera language, longer takes and a more controlled, creeping sense of dread. I occasionally found myself missing Boyle’s off-the-wall energy and formal inventiveness, but DaCosta’s style suits the more contained sequel, which narrows its focus and settles into a suffocating horror burn.
The film’s narrower scope does make it feel less eventful. Despite being the trilogy’s nominal protagonist, Spike has little to do beyond reacting — mostly by looking terrified of his captors — which is perfectly understandable, but it leaves him feeling more passive than active. And for much of its runtime, the film plays like a slow march toward the inevitable collision between Jimmy’s gang and Kelson, punctuated by the Fingers’ killings along the way, which can make the plot feel a bit simple. Still, the Iron Maiden-fueled climax is absolutely electric, both unexpected and thrilling enough to justify the slow burn.
“The Bone Temple” is very good — often gripping, sometimes genuinely unnerving — even if it can’t quite match the formal audacity or unexpected poignancy that made “28 Years Later” truly great. DaCosta’s more classical approach makes the sequel cleaner and, in its own way, more accessible: the scares are sharper, the violence is nastier and the gore lands with an intensity the prior film only occasionally chased. That clarity comes at the cost of some of the first film’s wild inventiveness, but it also makes “The Bone Temple” a more straightforwardly scary sit.
The catch is that it once again ends on an intriguing cliffhanger, making this installment’s merit partially dependent on a future follow-up. That’s a risky gambit for any trilogy, especially with the film now struggling commercially from a steep second-weekend drop and an underwhelming global total for its budget. There’s something bracingly strange and ambitious about what Garland, Boyle and DaCosta are building here: brutal genre thrills fused with real ruminations on death, faith and the scraps of culture that survive the end of the world. Reports suggest a third film is in development, with plans continuing to develop and Boyle rumored to return as director. One can only hope it makes it to the finish line, because this is shaping up to be one of the oddest — and most fascinating — modern movie trilogies in years.
