"28 Years Later: The Bone Temple" Has Everything I've Ever Wanted in a Zombie Film

If there was a definitive movie for the summer of 2025 it would be Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later. Coming out twenty three years after the series' first installment, this adrenaline pumping zombie flick had everyone and their mother racing to the nearest cinema to see the state of the British Isles nearly three decades since the disease-induced end of the world. But after waiting 23 years between films, imagine everyone's shock when it was revealed that the next installment would come out in a mere seven months, but the sheer anticipation made it feel just as lengthy. This weekend, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple saw its opening weekend in theaters worldwide, kicking off 2026 to a bombastic cinematic start.

I said this when Hedda came out a few months ago, but it bears repeating that I have been a Nia DaCosta fan since her criminally underrated Candyman remake, and I’ve been properly sitting on my stock waiting for a film to come around that makes everyone realize what they’ve been missing. And if The Bone Temple doesn’t wake the stragglers up to her talents, then they truly are beyond saving. This is her best film by a landslide. 

If 28 Years Later was an exercise in Danny Boyle's innovative directing, then The Bone Temple is an exercise in how many completely bonkers, but somehow miraculously balanced needledrops Nia DaCosta can pull off in 109 minutes. The Bone Temple is crammed with everything from Radiohead to Duran Duran to even some Iron Maiden, and every single one made my jaw fall to the floor for one reason or another. 

My one consistent critique with her work is that director Nia DaCosta is essentially the hydrogen bomb to writer Nia DaCosta’s coughing baby. And lo and behold with Alex Garland in the writer’s role for this film, her directing is the best it’s ever been here. Where Danny Boyle emphasized freneticism and shakiness, DaCosta has more than a key eye for stillness and meditation. Not that the film is devoid of action…it most certainly is not, but the stark change in direction from the previous film in this newfound trilogy solidifies these two films (if the stories themselves didn’t already) as two of the most innovative and individual zombie films in decades. 

Let’s talk about that action for a minute. The opening sequence depicts a young Spike being forced to duel his way into the now infamous Jimmy Cult lead by the spectacularly horrifying, Jack O’Connell. What audiences might not be ready for is just how intensely gorey and violent The Bone Temple is. The violence is gruesome, deeply unsettling, grimy, and at the same time impossible to look away from. There are multiple sequences in the film that genuinely sickened me, and DaCosta’s direction alongside veteran DP Sean Bobbitt makes each one more gorgeous to look at than the last. Split Diopter fans can rest easy knowing that there are at least two in the film that took my breath away. 

Quite a bit is asked of the young Alfie Williams in this film, and for the most part he lands his more difficult moments. His character is somehow put through even more hell than the previous film, and he’s never not selling it. Jack O’Connell seems to be channeling Satan incarnate by way of a 90s Jimmy Saville wig, and the tonal balancing act that his performance walks between pathetic comedy and a deep sense of malice is some of the finest I’ve seen in a long time. Erin Kellyman proves to be an excellent addition to the cast as well, and her dynamic with Williams is one of the more substantive dynamics in the film. 

Now for the elephant in the room: Ralph freaking Fiennes. It’s hard to describe how great he is in these movies because he’s already one of the most versatile, fearless actors working today, and of his generation period, but his work here is indescribable. His relationship with Samson, the infected Alpha delivers some of the richest thematics we’ve ever seen in the genre. Between the two, there are multiple scenes I had silently accepted would never attempt to be done in the genre, but thankfully, here we are. I’ve never experienced an applause break in a press screening before. However, there is one sequence towards the end with Fiennes’ character that had at least two moments of rapturous applause, and had a room full of journalists trying to out-snooty each other genuinely hootin’ and hollerin.

The film certainly feels more like a part 1.5 to 28 Years Later than it does a sequel. It is clearly bridging the gap between the first and third movies in terms of story, but the conversations it ignites about religion, mass psychosis, and cultism as a grief tool is deeply inspired. Given where the film ends I truly have no clue how they’re going to conclude this trilogy, and that is simultaneously the most exciting, and the most scary thing in the entire world. But if you have faith (and I do) that Boyle, Garland and co. can make the third film as good as these first two have been, we’ll be gifted with one of the most unexpectedly rich film trilogies of the modern era.