28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (18)

Separated from his father and home, teenager Spike has a close encounter with menacing gang leader Jimmy Crystal that rapidly becomes a nightmare he cannot escape. As the youngster faces a harrowing ordeal, Dr Kelson is shocked to forge a connection to the hulking Alpha known as Samson. Continued observation reveals a new glimmer of hope for survivors of the contagion.

LondonNet Film Review

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (18) Film Review from LondonNet

If heaven is a place on Earth then hell must logically exist somewhere on terra firma too. Director Nia DaCosta accepts the directorial baton from Danny Boyle to conjure a gore-slathered purgatory for survivors of the deadly rage virus in the second chapter of a bloodthirsty horror trilogy written by Alex Garland. Following the events of 28 Years Later, terrified teenager Spike (Alfie Williams) is separated from his family and fortified island home, and trembles in the grip of Satanist gang leader Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell)…

A deranged cult reveres Jimmy as the spawn of Old Nick and the showman channels edicts from his father to adoring acolytes Jimmima (Emma Laird), Jimmy Fox (Sam Locke), Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman), Jimmy Jimmy (Robert Rhodes), Jimmy Jones (Maura Bird) and Jimmy Snake (Ghazi Al Ruffai), who must continually prove their unwavering devotion to the Lord of Darkness. Spike aligns himself with Jimmy Crystal to survive until he can engineer an escape from his hellish ordeal.

Meanwhile, Dr Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) continues to honour the fallen at his towering memorial of skulls and bones. The iodine-slathered medic forges a curious connection to Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) and uses morphine-tipped blow darts to temporarily sedate the hulking Alpha and safely remove arrows from the infected brute’s torso. “You owe me one,” quips Kelso to his incapacitated patient. “Just kidding. I’m NHS – no charge!” As Samson recuperates, continued observation reveals a new glimmer of hope for survivors of the contagion.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is more gory and graphically violent than its predecessor including a protracted torture sequence that depicts helpless victims being flayed alive as so-called ‘charity’. One human head is forcibly torn from a body, exposing a glistening spinal cord, before the glutinous contents of the victim’s cranium are devoured in ravenous mouthfuls. Garland’s script applies a tourniquet to the sunnier side of human nature to restrict blood flow to kindness and compassion. There is no age restriction to the brutality, evidenced in a wince-inducing opening foray that establishes the disposability of onscreen characters. Several fresh faces are introduced purely as meat for the grinder.

Fiennes underscores the quiet dignity of his man of science and he lets loose to Duran Duran in the closest the sequel comes to a demonstration of euphoric release. Youngster Williams spends most of the picture in tremulous fear while O’Connell’s Jimmy Savile-inspired villainy induces an occasional discomfiting shudder. In the same way Jimmy Crystal was introduced in the closing minutes of 28 Years Later to bait the hook of this second film, a familiar face from the franchise manifests unexpectedly at the climax of the sequel and neatly sets up Garland to bring the post-apocalyptic nightmare full circle from 2003.

– Jo Planter