Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland reinvented the cinema zombie in 2002 with the modern classic 28 Days Later, a film that still feels remarkably fresh and innovative upon a rewatch today. There was then a rushed and largely unrelated sequel without any of that core creative team, 28 Weeks Later, but last year the pair returned to continue the franchise with 28 Years Later. It is an excellent horror film, brimming with exciting ideas and energised by the conviction of Garland’s script to be as weird and abrasive as it likes.
Now the story continues with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. The film was shot back-to-back with its predecessor from another script penned by Garland, this time directed by Nia DaCostal, returning to the horror genre for the first time since her 2021 contribution to the Candyman mythology. It’s predecessor ended in controversial fashion, introducing Jack O’Connell as Sir Jimmy Crystal and his not-so-merry gang of zombie killers who fight like the Power Rangers and are all dressed up as, erm, Jimmy Savile. Spike, the prepubescent protagonist of 28 Years Later, is swept up by this group and quickly realises just how brutal and horrendously cruel the Jimmies are.
What this places us into is a film that largely sidelines the zombies (or “infected”) for the sake of exploring just how deeply human evil is allowed to swell and take root when everything else has been destroyed. Where the last film is a surprisingly gentle and resonant coming-of-age film about grief and loss, The Bone Temple turns up the nastiness to explore themes of human cruelty driven by religious extremism and the way certain personalities can harness religion to lead a group of people to do truly terrible things.
Why does this all of a sudden feel so horribly contemporary?
Sir Jimmy’s life has been defined by trauma and violence. In the opening moments of 28 Years Later we see him and other children watching the Teletubbies as the infection causes his parents to tear his family apart. (It’s also important to note that at this point in history Jimmy Savile’s crimes had not been revealed to the public, another indication of a frozen culture landscape) Culture and history has been frozen by the infection-driven apocalypse, meaning that his sense of identity has been shaped by the crossover of infantile entertainment and remorseless violence. It is out of that compost heap of trauma that he has fashioned himself a new personality and gathered a posse of followers around that personality.
By claiming that he himself is the literal son of St. Nick – Satan, for those playing along at home – he positions himself as a religious and cultural leader to his followers, not simply a pragmatic leader through the post-apocalypse. Where I think The Bone Temple starts to tap into something very, very interesting is in the way it implies a certain level of willing cognitive dissonance. Sir Jimmy knows that his tale of religious calling is a complete fabrication told with the intent to control and subdue, but the film also implies that his followers are aware of this fabrication at some level. In this society ravaged by the rage virus, perhaps the best option they have for finding safety and community is to buy into Sir Jimmy’s perverted fable of religious calling.
Ralph Fiennes’ Dr Ian Kelsen, returning from 28 Years Later, threatens to destroy the false narrative that Sir Jimmy has built his cult of personality around. Where Sir Jimmy operates through a lens of violence, depravity and fear, Kelsen has devoted his life in the post-apocalypse to memorialising the dead and working towards some sort of cure that might relieve the infected of their imposed rage, rediscovering their humanity. There are signs, through tranquilisation, that the rage virus can indeed be tamed, seen through Kelsen’s growing relationship(?) with Samson, the well-endowed Alpha infected from the first film. Perhaps there is even the potential for the infected to regain their ability to speak.
Seen from a distance by the Jimmies, his orange iodine-coated skin and his imposing memorial made from the countless bones of the dead imply something that immediately taps into their leader’s tale of religious extremism and superiority. He is of course not Satan, nothing more than a kindly doctor finding peace and tranquility in the post-apocalypse, but as far as Sir Jimmy’s followers are concerned they have just seen irrefutable proof that St. Nick is not only real but manifested in front of their very eyes.
What follows is a fascinating ideological battle, as Sir Jimmy is forced to confront the fabrication at the very heart of his own ideological framework as embodied by Dr. Kelsen. Religious extremism meets medical rationality. Cruelty and violence meets care and compassion. The film depicts the savagery and violence in stunning and unflinching detail, something that is entirely necessary to be able to combat said savagery with its counterpart. But there is a sympathy and strange warmth shown to Sir Jimmy’s followers by the film as they all eventually see his lie for what it is – a sympathy that is definitely not extended to Sir Jimmy himself.
What the film is saying specifically about this phenomenon of cult of personality built on religious extremism is really up to the viewer. A great strength of all of Alex Garland’s work on the page is that his films are filled with enough material and nuance to allow the audience space to explore the ideas he is presenting, and The Bone Temple is no different. But given the current state of the world, it is a conversation that the film presents as crucially and dangerously urgent, something that must be addressed sooner rather than later. While there isn’t much in the way of sympathy for those driving extremism and harnessing it for their own political and cultural gain, it is resolute in allowing much more warmth and grace to be shown towards those who align themselves to it out of a desperate need to find safety and security.
Garland has spoken about this (as yet unfinished) trilogy in thematic terms, laying out the first film as being about cultural isolation and grief, this film about the nature of evil, and the forthcoming third and final film to be about redemption. There are hints at said redemption in the final moments of this film, a tantalising glimpse of what will be coming, but the film seems to suggest that this redemption may not in fact be fully attainable while evil men use religious extremism and cult of personality to spread fear and violence in the name of personal power and self-actualisation.
What’s most fascinating is that the man with orange skin in The Bone Temple is, in fact, the good guy. But don’t let that confuse you. The Bone Temple pulls no punches in its damning dismantling of charismatic leaders parading around and pretending to be any sort of leader of substance worth a shred of respect.
Speculative fiction, indeed.
Jonty writes about film, narrative and culture on his Substack, “Postcards from the Abyss”.
