28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

Director: Nia DaCosta

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Is it entirely possible that my favorite zombie movie of all time is resolute in its desire to feature the least amount of zombies possible and still be called a zombie movie?

I think it’s certainly possible. My favorite—and it really should have been your favorite—part about last year’s 28 Years Later was Fiennes masterful performance as the simultaneously slightly insane, but also deeply kind Dr. Ian Kelson. On that front, this almost-immediate sequel doubles down on Feinnes and his character. It even let’s Jack O’Connell slowly cement himself as the 21st century’s answer to Donald Pleasance* after last year’s Sinners with another suitably villainous turn.

It’s well made, often very surprising, and as is so often not the case in this genre, the ending is both tragic and satisfying. It is truly a synthesis of the best of last year’s horror.

So, why do I feel so muted about the whole experience. There’s at least something to saying my theater experience attempted to ruin the whole experience. With a screening delayed over half an hour and a concession stand drowning in late stage capitalism, I’ve long since wondered if the multiplex is prepared to live much longer. Now I’m sure their days are numbered.

Really, I think this film is giving me too much of what I wanted from it. O’Connell doesn’t really surprise me here. I know what he is capable of. Kelson as a character isn’t a refreshing bolt of humanity in a genre and film series that could be understood if not quite forgiven for abandoning the human qualities. It’s exactly what I wanted out of it, and I guess I’m looking for films to take the wind out of me.

*I said what I said.

28 Years Later (2025)

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Hell, I just recently got on board with 28 Days Later (2002).

Did I Like It: The movie being sold in this film’s trailers seemed like a fine one. Years after the initial onset of the Rage Virus, there’s a little island village in the United Kingdom that got spared the worst of it.

But for how long?

That’s a perfectly fine log line for a movie, and with Danny Boyle back in the mix* it feels like whatever was going to be on tap, it would be both elevated and do its level headed best to transcend the trappings of the genre.

But that’s not what the movie is about. At all. The island of Lindisfarme is just as secure from the Rage Virus as it has been since the beginning of both this movie and the early aughts. What the movie is really about is so much more poignant, genuine, relevant, and—I really can’t believe I’m going to say this about a zombie film—life-affirming.

I really don’t want to tell you what it really is about. If you want to hear my thoughts on the particulars, there’s an episode of Beyond the Cabin in the Woods that is either already available, or will be soon.

Let me leave this then with the thought the film leaves us—when it isn’t setting up a sequel approaching faster than one of the film’s non-obese zombies—and I never thought would come from a Zombie film:

Memento Amori.

As I type this, the film’s opening weekend is still in full swing. It hasn’t nearly reached its full audience yet. I google “memento amori” now, and I get back a bunch of catamaran charters in the Caribbean.

I have a real feeling that the phrase will take on a new meaning very, very soon.

*Did anyone else think the movie would also have a return from a post-Oppenheimer (2023) Cillian Murphy? Did anyone else that one zombie in the trailer was Murphy? Just me? Okie doke!

28 Days Later (2002)

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Brendan Gleeson

Have I Seen it Before: Oddly enough, no.

Did I Like It: One has to wonder precisely why I have missed the film over twenty years later. The likeliest suspect on spec is my general aversion to the zombie genre. I’m fine with misery porn when its based on reality—presumably we’ve surpassed or are trying to surpass the ills that introduced said misery—but when its all hypothetical, my threshold is pretty low.

My antipathy isn’t helped much by my skepticism that Boyle* has spent years insisting that the film isn’t really about zombies. How many directors of zombie films—from Romero to Edgar Wright—have insisted that their opus isn’t really about zombies? More importantly: How many of them are right or even remotely believable in that assertion?

So, I’m happy to report that Boyle was right on the money** and joins the elite minority of those  who actually know what their film is about. The film is incidentally about zombies and more about how the institutions we’re supposed to rely on are bureaucratically and temperamentally unable to meet the needs of the future. Jim (Murphy) awakens in a hospital, but there is no care there. He immediately heads for a church, but there is nothing but frightening realization there. He eventually bands together with some fellow survivors and try to find a base of military officers who offer protection, and possibly, answers.

Answers are scarce, and whatever protection they have in mind is a parody of the concept they would want us to believe in.

If you can get over the pronounced British video quality of the cinematography—it is often distracting, and puts one in mind to watch some BBC sitcom of the era—then the film offers plenty to chew on, and even a little bit of hope by the time the credits roll. The Walking Dead couldn’t even manage that much and they’re still trying to bring that thing to a conclusion fifteen years later.

*Not that one. Har har har.

**Har har har.