28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

28 YEARS LATER: The Bone Temple 🔥 (2026)

If you’re like me, you understand how excruciating the wait can be for the next installment of a movie you love, especially when it ends on a wild cliffhanger that makes you wish the next film would start the moment the last one ends.

Luckily, in the case of the 28 post-apocalyptic zombie franchise, we only had to wait several months to jump back into this virus-plagued world of chaos.

At the end of 28 Years Later (2025), we’re left with Spike traveling alone across the island before encountering a cult of highly skilled zombie killers. They protect him from a horde of infected and are led by a mysterious man bearing an upside-down cross named Jimmy. What seems like the beginning of an uneasy alliance at the end of the last film suddenly becomes a fight to the death at the opening of The Bone Temple.

From there, we follow the intersecting journeys of Spike, Jimmy’s cult, the Alpha zombie, and Doctor Kelsen (Ralph Fiennes—Conclave, Harry Potter) as they navigate these tortured times,

where survival offers no mercy.

After 28 Years Later, I was beyond curious to see where they would take this story next.

Personally, I found the opening of this film to be an odd choice. There’s a noticeable gap between where the last movie ends and where this one begins, and that absence undercuts what felt like a deliberately tense but cordial relationship between Spike and this eccentric killing crew. Instead, we’re thrown into a violent conflict that feels abrupt and unearned.

Even Jimmy’s group itself lacks the swagger and acrobatic flair they had in the previous film. The back-flipping spectacle that once defined them is replaced here with grounded, unembellished violence, signaling a move away from style and toward sheer cruelty. That shift made it difficult to settle into the film early on, as it felt stylistically at odds with where the last entry ended.

By the time I did settle into the story being told, I found myself caring less about what initially sparked my curiosity and more about the fascinating relationship that develops between Doctor Kelsen and the Alpha.

Ironically, the most compelling part of the film has little to do with that initial setup. The relationship between Doctor Kelsen and the Alpha. and the strange, almost peaceful discovery that grows between them becomes The Bone Temple’s thematic and emotional core. That dynamic is the primary element of the film that truly worked for me.

Where 28 Years Later expanded the world by exploring what long-term viral evolution might look like, this film shifts focus toward the growth and decay of the human experience under constant threat and being forced to live in a state of fight, die, or barely survive.

In theory, these two ideas are meant to contrast one another. In practice, only one of them fully works. The other lacks the momentum and narrative build needed to make its key moments resonate.

I wanted to love this movie the way I loved the last one. Instead, I found myself enjoying individual pieces without ever fully connecting to the totality of the film.

This installment also marks a change behind the camera, with the director reins being passed to Nia DaCosta (Candyman, The Marvels), alongside her longtime collaborator, cinematographer Sean Bobbitt (Judas and the Black Messiah, The Place Beyond the Pines).

In both cases, the storytelling and visual presentation feel like a step down from the previous film.

That said, there is one undeniable highlight: an early contender for needle-drop moment of the year set to Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast and when it hits—it f*cking rips! 

But aside from that, the film lacks pulse. And yes, I know zombies, no pulse—but 28 Years Later felt alive. Its heart was racing. Here, the energy feels mostly flatlined.

In many ways, The Bone Temple plays like a short story set within a larger world rather than the kind of expansive evolution of humanity’s existence that defined the previous film.

Still, I say all of this knowing I’ll be seated the moment the next entry is released, especially one that promises to connect these last two films to the original in a way I hope proves more ambitious than this chapter.

28 YEARS LATER: The Bone Temple may not reach the highs of its predecessor, but it remains a tightly knit case study in how sustained trauma reshapes people, their communities, and their relationship to faith—one forged not from hope, but from fear. 

Enjoy!

6.8/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 1hr50mins

Where: In Theatres January 16th.

The Richmond Reviewer 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Review (2026) - January 17th, 2026.

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