28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, directed by Nia DeCosta and written by Alex Garland, picks up immediately where 28 Years Later left off. 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams) struck out on his own after falling out with his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Leaving the safety of the island colony where he was raised, Spike hits the British mainland to see what else is out there, counting on his survival skills to navigate around those infected with the Rage virus. These are fast zombies that appear in numbers when a victim is spotted. Director Nia DaCosta delivers a searing allegory for cultural decline wrapped in a rowdy, gory adventure. The global pandemic virus has largely been beaten back, with only the British Isles being infected and now under permanent quarantine.

Spike manages to survive for 28 days, but when he is cornered by a pack of infected and seemingly done for, he is rescued by a roving gang of “Jimmys.” They are acolytes of Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), a track-suit-wearing, blinged-out cult leader. Crystal has styled himself after disgraced UK DJ and media personality Jimmy Savile, who was a British media darling all his life, but evidence surfaced after his death that he’d committed sexual assault on children.

Crystal calls himself the son of Satan and believes that the Rage infection is Old Nick’s work. When his group of murderous followers, all nicknamed Jimmy, find uninfected survivors, they torture and murder them in a ritual Crystal calls “charity.” Crystal often chooses one of the victims to fight another Jimmy to the death. If the newcomer wins, he/she gets to join the gang and replace the dead Jimmy. This is how Spike becomes a Jimmy. A lucky swipe of his knife nicks his opponent’s femoral artery, and the Jimmy bleeds out while the group looks on and laughs.

“…polar-opposite worldviews clash violently when the Jimmys ultimately meet Kelson.”

Spike tries to run away from the gang while they are torturing a family at a farmhouse, but is caught by Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman). When Crystal wants to kill Spike, Ink suggests allowing Old Nick himself to sort out Spike’s fate. She has seen Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) in his Bone Temple ossuary and takes him to be Satan because of his red iodine-stained skin. The Jimmys visit Kelson, thinking they are worshiping Satan. What follows is an insane display of fiery theatrics. The finale is pure rock and roll, literally, with Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast blasting across the landscape at eardrum-shattering volume.

Crystal doesn’t know much about how the world works, as Rage came when he was a child before he’d had much education, so he makes up a mythos to give himself a backstory. Of course, it’s the mythos of a murderous psychopath who needs to concoct a framework for his bloody impulses, even if it is as reductive as “the devil made me do it.” Dr. Kelson, on the other hand, is steeped in science and medicine, and his actions are all results of understanding the mechanisms of nature. These polar-opposite worldviews clash violently when the Jimmys ultimately meet Kelson.