28 Years Later The Bone Temple review – Ralph Fiennes takes on Jimmy Savile cult | Films | Entertainment

Last year, original 28 Days Later writer Alex Garland and director Danny Boyle returned to the British zombie franchise with 28 Years Later.

Only Garland has penned a trilogy, with second film 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple having been shot back-to-back with the 2025 film, only this time directed by Nia DaCosta.

Continuing the post-apocalyptic horror adventures of young Spike (Alfie Williams) growing up on a quarantined 2030 Britain, The Bone Temple begins right where 28 Years Later ended.

The young Geordie has reluctantly joined a bizarre, ultra-violent cult of Satanists who dress as Jimmy Savile. Yes, you read that correctly.

Led by regular big screen villain Jack O’Connell in a disturbing camp performance as Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, this gang of sadists follows in the footsteps of A Clockwork Orange droogs.

They are uniformed thugs bent on torturing fellow survivors in the most horrific ways in the service of the Devil, who they believe began the plague in 2002.

In contrast to their human monstrousness, Ralph Fiennes returns as the gentle hermit Dr Kelson, a GP who has built his Bone Temple to the memory of the dead, both infected and not. In his peaceful island haven, he tries to humanise and tame Samson, the enormously well-endowed Alpha zombie from the first film. Boyle, who is on producer duties for the second movie, shared that while the first film is about family, the follow-up explores the nature of evil. Just as 28 Years Later was filled with explicit British imagery, The Bone Temple is littered with extremely dark Biblical themes.