Fresh off critical acclaim from her cinematic take on Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, Hedda, director Nia DaCosta returns to horror with the fourth installment of the 28 series, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. DaCosta’s last foray into horror, a remake of Candyman produced by Jordan Peele, was a critical and commercial success. While I’m not sure about the commercial prospects of Alex Garland’s latest take on zombie Britannia, from an artistic perspective, DaCosta delivers the goods, even if the film flags a little in the middle.
Picking up not long after where Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later left off, we immediately learn that the brigade of bewigged bleach blondes that saved young Spike (the terrific Alfie Williams) at the end of the last film are no better company than the zombies that were chasing the boy. Led by Jack O’Connor’s “Sir Jimmy,” the gang (who bear some behavioral resemblance to Malcolm McDowell’s “Droogs” from A Clockwork Orange) is a cult of flamboyant Satanists that kill zombies to survive, and humans because, well, because they like it.
Spike isn’t so much recruited as he is given no other choice. His story runs parallel to that of Ralph Fiennes’ mad but benevolent Doctor Kelson, who seeks a cure for zombieism while building towers of bones and skulls, hence the film’s title. We return to Kelson as he drags a zombie carcass to place among his bone collection. It’s a sunny afternoon, and Kelson is walking and warbling along to the sound of his favorite tune, Duran Duran’s cheeky ‘80s classic, Girls on Film (Simon LeBon and the boys get a lot of run in The Bone Temple). When Kelson comes into contact with the huge (and hugely hung) alpha zombie he’s dubbed “Samson,” he takes the opportunity to try out his serum, a cocktail of meds with a heavy morphine base. Kelson’s progress with “Samson” becomes the surprisingly affecting emotional heart of The Bone Temple.
It should come as no surprise that the great Ralph is the film’s most valuable performer. Fiennes is reliably excellent in just about everything, and his willingness to do just about anything is notable. Here’s one of the great actors of his generation acting in a zombie movie, covered in iodine, wearing not much more than a sackcloth, disrobing down to his, er, studs, singing New Wave, and managing the murky space where insanity and genius intersect. It could all have come off as ridiculous and embarrassing, but not in the inspired hands of Fiennes, who lends the film a barely tethered-to-reality humanity that it absolutely needs to be taken seriously.
Alex Garland’s screenplay mixes horror, pathos, and black humor in such a way that The Bone Temple needs someone to ground it, and a filmmaker to measure the pace. Fiennes supplies the former, and DaCosta the latter. The Bone Temple is closer to the last film in the series than the first two 28 films, not just because of the direct connection to the characters played by Fiennes and Williams, or the “picking up where they left off” nature of this installment, but also because of the weirdly playful nature of Boyle’s third film in the series.
DaCosta leans into the preceding film’s off-kilter take on the crashing of society by asking, “What comes next?” The original 28 film focused on the cost of science getting ahead of itself and the subsequent cost. Through Doctor Kelson, The Bone Temple suggests that even after the accidental creation of a plague that set humankind back five centuries, the cure still lies in science. In this anti-science, anti-knowledge, and anti-expertise era that we are living in, that’s an almost revolutionary point of view.
Of course, films about finding a cure for a disease are nothing new, nor is a zombie story that suggests that humans are just as bad, if not worse, than the monsters they are running from. Pretty much every season of The Walking Dead was about a group of survivors fending off zombies who wanted to eat them, and humans who wanted to lord over them (and sometimes eat them, too). During the film’s middle section, the perspective on the evil humans does weigh the film down with trope repetition. I would argue that The Bone Temple’s surprising lack of zombie mayhem may disappoint viewers who were expecting more skulls and spines to get ripped in one motion from the anatomy of humans.
Thankfully, DaCosta saves the best for last in The Bone Temple. Due to a case of cult follower misidentification, “Sir Jimmy” is put in the position of having to prove he really is the son of Satan. O’Connell is good, wicked fun as Sir Jimmy, burnishing his horror film credentials after Sinners with no small amount of flair. Knowing that the jig will be up with his clan if he can’t convince them he is the offspring of “Ol Nick,” as they call him, Sir Jimmy hatches a plot with Kelson after making it clear to the good doctor that he either goes along, or his skull will be added to the tower of bones he has collected.
This ruse by Sir Jimmy leads to the genuinely wild climax of the film, with Fiennes going faux Voldemort to the dulcet tones of Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast (naturally). The sequence is masterfully directed by DaCosta and shot by cinematographer Sean Babbit. Lit by fire and dressed in makeup by kabuki, Fiennes pulls out all the stops, dancing with abandon, singing along to heavy metal, and reminding us of what a truly remarkable actor he is. The rollicking and demented scene arrives just in time, giving the film an eye-popping shot of adrenaline. It’s also an ingenious bit of writing, as a moment of biblical betrayal is delivered with Fiennes finesse.
Even so, the film’s most crowd-pleasing moment comes in its coda, with the appearance of a familiar face, the sound of a familiar theme, and a hint at where this most unusual and resilient series of horror films might go. At this time, Garland has planned a fifth 28 film, but it has not yet been greenlit. Here’s to hoping that he and his collaborators get the opportunity to take it to the limit one more time. DaCosta and Fiennes have earned them the right.
