28 Years Later: The Bone Temple review: a terrifying crisis of faith

Because there was such a long gap between the releases of after 28 weeks And after 28 yearsIt’s surprising to hear that writer-director duo Alex Garland and Danny Boyle had already planned their latest collaboration to be the first chapter of a new horror trilogy. It seemed like Sony was eager to move the idea of ​​this pairing forward quickly after 28 years And back to back shooting of its sequel started. But it also felt like the studio wanted to bring a different kind of energy to the franchise when it chose Nia DaCosta to direct the new film.

That energy and his distinctiveness are evident in Boyle’s directorial voice 28 years later: Bone Temple – A film that understands how much more powerful horror is when it has silly humor added to it. While there’s no shortage of gore and stomach-churning violence, the lean toward comedy is one of the film’s more clever ways of showing what its characters are fighting for. each of bone temple‘s jokes are a reminder of how, in a world full of flesh-eating monsters, human connection and community are things people are willing to die for.

bone temple picks up immediately after after 28 years sees teenage Spike (Alfie Williams) trying to figure out his life as a newly inducted member of Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), who is on the hunt for a cult of platinum blonde wig-wearing drugs, all known as “Jimmy”. Spike can handle himself just fine against some infected people hiding in the English woods, but his skill with a bow and arrow is nothing compared to Jimmy’s ultraviolent approach to dealing with anything that comes their way.

Killing people on the orders of Jimmy Crystal – whether infected or not – has become second nature to Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman), Jimima (Emma Laird) and the rest of their crazy crew. Spike finds it hard to accept Jimmy Crystal’s claims of being talked to and directed by a higher, invisible power, but he knows he has no choice but to join the gang and dress like a sexual predator when they ask him to join their ranks.

It’s through Jimmy as a unit after 28 years Begins to discover the ways in which faith can be weaponized to harm the very people to whom it provides psychological comfort. The Jimmys are a twisted family bound together by a true affection for each other and the understanding that as a group they are safer. But the film presents their desire to follow Jimmy Crystal as born out of fear and a more general naivety caused by the decline of society.

One of the most striking things about O’Connell’s performance is how – despite Jimmy Crystal’s moments of psychopathy and delusion – he brings the character across as a scared boy trapped inside the body of an unhinged man. The film says a lot through repeated mentions of Jimmy teenager And the way he insists that his father, Satan, is whispering orders into his ear. Jimmy’s delusional babble is convincing to his relatively young followers because they have grown up in a world where level-headed authority figures who can teach them fact from fiction are few and far between. But the cult leader’s hoax is less effective when it’s aimed at older people with more life experience and memories of the pre-plague world, like Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes).

It’s through Kelson bone temple The Plague begins to ask and answer a lot of interesting questions about those infected with the virus, like Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), the hulking, spine-breaking Alpha who is introduced. after 28 years. The new film spends more time with these returning characters to give us a better understanding of what their lives have been like and how meeting each other has changed them both. Fiennes and Lewis-Parry are great together bone temple Brings Kelson and Samson closer together in surprising, worrying, and unexpectedly funny ways. But the amount of liveliness this pair brings to this story, bone temple It also uses them to remind you of what humanity has lost in the 28 years since the outbreak of the Rage infection.

Whereas after 28 years It felt like a movie inspired by zombie stories and having a conversation 28 days later, bone temple Much of its inspiration comes from old pieces of the Dead canon. DaCosta punctuates scenes of Samson hunting wildly in search of flesh with unsettling moments of stillness and tight, nauseating shots of him cracking open the skulls to disembowel the brains of his victims. In the context of the film, Samson is a new type of infected individual – one with greater intelligence and the ability to socialize with others like him. But as a screen presence, the character comes off like an homage to the decrepit corpses that made George Romero a cinematic icon.

Although DeCosta inherits much of this story from Boyle and Garland’s last collaboration, she makes it her own by leaning toward a less frenetic style of visual storytelling. Some of the film’s biggest scares work because of how slowly they unfold. But just when it seems like the film is at its most unsettling, DaCosta tempers that tension somewhat with a handful of perfectly placed needle drops.

It was difficult to understand how after 28 years Could develop into a compelling trilogy. But bone temple It makes clear that Boyle and Garland have been cooking up the heat since the beginning of this new chapter of the massive franchise. DaCosta has expertly set up several promising developments for the trilogy’s conclusion, after which Boyle will return to wrap things up. And if the next film succeeds in injecting the same level of life into the undead genre, it will all be worth the wait.

28 Days Later: Bone Temple It also stars Lewis Ashbourne Serkis, Maura Bird, Ghazi El Rufai, Sam Locke and Cillian Murphy. This film will be released in theaters on January 16.