If you thought the ‘28 Days Later’ universe had already wrung every last drop of dread out of its infected nightmare, ‘28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ turns up with a grin and a blood soaked vinyl sleeve.
Directed by Nia DaCosta and written by Alex Garland, this fourth entry in the franchise doesn’t just go bigger, It goes weirder and louder. Think dystopian horror with the guts of a survival thriller, the mood swings of folk horror, and the unhinged confidence to drop Iron Maiden into the middle of it all.
Front and centre is Ralph Fiennes as Dr. Ian Kelson, a self exiled medic who’s spent years out in the rot, surrounded by violence and infection, building something that’s part fortress and part monument to death.
He’s not played as a neat “wise man in the wasteland” type either, Fiennes makes him sharp, eerie, and intense in a way that keeps you guessing whether he’s a genius, a lunatic, or both.
The film reportedly hits its peak insanity when Kelson erupts with the line: “Pride moves inside me like maggots in the corpse of Christ!”.
Bizarre turns
One of the film’s strangest swings is Kelson’s connection with Samson, a hulking Alpha infected once again played by Chi Lewis-Parry.
The relationship shifts into something unexpectedly tender, with Kelson experimenting on the infected while still showing a flicker of compassion that hasn’t really existed in this series before.
Meanwhile, the film’s main curveball comes in the form of a roaming band of Satanists led by Jack O’Connell, playing a menacing cult figure called Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal. They don’t just survive in this world, they treat it like sport, dragging cruelty into the spotlight in ways that feel grim even by franchise standards.
It’s messy, brutal, and not always coherent, but it’s never boring. If you want clean horror storytelling, look elsewhere, but If you want a nightmare with teeth, noise, and ambition, this one delivers.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple hits cinemas this Thursday, January 15.
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