Time has finally caught up to the 28 Days Later series. Thankfully, it’s not because our recent global pandemic ever tipped over into full-on zombification. (Although, is there a better word for the ugly side effect that is the anti-vaccination movement?) If anything, the fictional post-zombie denizens of a quarantined England are blissfully immune to (or on a different timeline from) certain contemporary events, as one character notes, in a home-schooled lesson, that World War II helped to beat back and rebuke fascism. No, the series shift is more directly temporal, as well as sequel-cosmetic: Every previous movie in this series had its official moniker escalate as an expositional intertitle, letting the audience know how much off-screen time had elapsed between the earliest moments of the zombie virus outbreak and the movies’ central narratives. First days, then weeks, then years. Now, with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, it’s those same years…plus a small, indeterminate amount of time.
The Bone Temple admittedly makes for a catchier subtitle than 28 Years Later: Plus Six To Ten Days, Give Or Take. It also signals that this near-immediate follow-up to last year’s long-gap sequel/revival will be less concerned with exploring the boundaries of a newly reconfigured world. Rather, it sees a quick and unfortunate acclimation for Spike (Alfie Williams), the resourceful barely-teenage boy we last saw striking out on his own to explore the zombie-infested English countryside. In a previous-movie cliffhanger that felt more like a mid-credits tease, Spike was saved from an attack by a man calling himself Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), leading a bewigged crew of imitators. They made short work of a zombie horde, but what would become of Spike?
The Bone Temple wastes little time answering this question: He’s been conscripted into their gang, ruled by Sir Jimmy (first seen as a child in the previous film’s prologue) with fearsome, cultish brutality. Case in point: a nasty initiation ritual, followed by some home-invasion activities that make Jimmy seem like he’s accidentally invented the movie The Strangers. Building on ideas from the final act of the very first 28 Days Later, there’s no violence in The Bone Temple more grotesque or abhorrent than what nominal non-zombies do to their fellow humans.
Jimmy has a talent for ferreting out excuses for violence; that mean streak and his Scottish brogue jointly recall Begbie, the psychotically pugnacious (and similarly father-deprived) frenemy from Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting films. Despite his creative success with T2 (the other one) and 28 Years Later, Boyle has not fully returned for this particular sequel. Instead, he serves as producer, passing off directing to Nia DaCosta (recently of Hedda and perhaps more relevantly of a Candyman legacy sequel), and hoping to return later for a third go-round. (Yes, without getting into any specifics, this one also ends on a cliffhanger tag following its proper resolution.)
At times, DaCosta appears to be paying tribute to Boyle’s go-anywhere camera. At one point, it’s fixed on the chest of a roving zombie, staring up at him as he whips his body around; at others, eerily calm overhead shots give a god’s-eye view of impending disasters. The material seems to function as permission for DaCosta to go a little wilder than her usual tasteful precision. Still, this movie looks little like the Anthony Dod Mantle-shot, multi-iPhone phantasmagoria of the previous entry; DaCosta and her regular DP Sean Bobbitt have a more restrained, though handsome, style. And while screenwriter Alex Garland remains, even his story feels a little more friendly to the masses.
While 28 Years Later took thrillingly unpredictable narrative zig-zags to follow what became Spike’s story, The Bone Temple more traditionally intercuts multiple storylines that will quite obviously intersect in the third act. That inevitability makes the world of the sequel feel smaller, despite not taking place in a sequestered community. On the plus side, it invites a closer look at Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), the kindly doctor Spike met in the last section of the previous movie. Kelson remains at the bone-temple memorial he’s constructed to this world’s many dead, but gets an unexpected companion in the form of the film’s third thread: the large “alpha” zombie who apparently evolved into an intimidating leader, now rechristened “Samson” (Chi Lewis-Parry) by the good doctor. Yes, he gets close enough to give the super-strong, well-hung bloke a name, as Kelson becomes the rare zombie-movie lead who seems entirely uninterested in killing zombies.
Fiennes, as before, is spectacular in the role, assuring that some bits of wry humor land perfectly and also selling Kelson’s new role as the film’s in-world music supervisor. Luckily, he’s amassed a modest but well-curated record collection for the end of the world; another normie concession, albeit an entirely likable one, is how much Duran Duran this film entails. (Boyle would have found a way to sneak a Sleeper LP into Kelson’s bunker.) One particular Kelson musical sequence is a showstopper for the ages. O’Connell, too, has some funny, recognizably human business in the midst of his gruesome quest for power, reminiscent of many real-world charlatans. It’s a neat surprise that DaCosta extracts more dark humor from the series than Boyle himself.
If there’s a character who gets the short shrift in this new chapter, it’s poor Spike. He was the stealth focal point of the previous film, as 28 Years Later purposefully dropped its father-son story to morph into a coming-of-age narrative about a younger person making his first real steps into a broken world. Here, Spike isn’t exactly passive, but his unwilling membership in the Jimmy gang muzzles his point of view even when he’s on screen serving as the point of audience identification. Alfie Williams, who gave a remarkable performance last time around, feels constrained by his understandable but one-note terror in this installment.
That latter point, too, could be considered a problem: This 28 Years Later plays even more like an installment, less because of its enticing final teaser than the satisfactory but less emotionally satisfying ending that precedes it. Before its bonkers ending, 28 Years Later offered a perfect stopping place for Spike, refracting all that came before it through a new lens. That’s a risk DaCosta’s film seems less willing to take, at least on its own. Over time, this zombie series may be morphing into something more akin to Planet Of The Apes, only without the predetermined endpoint that informed so many of those movies. This bodes well for a third film in the 28 Years Later sub-series, and may enhance The Bone Temple in retrospect. For now, it’s a thoroughly entertaining and still-offbeat horror picture that may just need a little more time.
Director: Nia DaCosta
Writer: Alex Garland
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Alfie Williams, Jack O’Connell, Erin Kellyman, Chi Lewis-Parry
Release Date: January 16, 2026