Spike enters a satanic cult unwillingly and witnesses atrocities while Dr Kelson is trying to change the world.
The rage recedes while something else approaches… With 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the franchise takes a turn that, frankly, felt foreshadowed in the previous instalment, 28 Years Later (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/28-years-later-2025/. The infected – once the primal engine of terror – are now secondary, almost peripheral. And when the infected stop being the central threat in a 28 film, something fundamental shifts.
Survival used to be immediate. Breathless. Animalistic. Running for your life meant exactly that. Here, that urgency is diluted. The rage virus, once a national-scale catastrophe that redefined modern horror, narrows into something far more localised. Satanists emerge as the primary antagonistic force, and the conflict shrinks accordingly. Add to that a paranoid doctor vying for narrative dominance, and the apocalypse begins to feel oddly domestic.
Technically, what director Nia DaCosta, writer/producer Alex Garland, and producer Danny Boyle have created is strong. It’s well-shot, tightly edited, and maintains a confident pace and rhythm. The acting is also powerful. Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, Connor Newall, Erin Kellyman, Maura Bird, Ghazi Al Ruffai, Robert Rhodes, Emma Laird, and Chi Lewis-Parry deliver strong performances that captivate. The craftsmanship is not the issue. In fact, the barn sequence stands out as the film’s most powerful stretch – tense, atmospheric, and briefly reminiscent of the franchise’s former ferocity. Before and after that moment, however, the identity of the series feels blurred.
The infected lack presence. The once-distinct hyper-kinetic motion aesthetic is noticeably restrained. Even the soundtrack, which previously amplified unforgettable sequences, feels less defining. The introduction of the so-called “A-males” – teased as a significant evolution – ultimately registers as redundant rather than revolutionary (while there is a revelation).
It’s clear there is an overarching design behind this new trilogy. Ambition is not lacking. The groundwork was laid with confidence, and the expansion of the universe showed promise. But this chapter takes a path that not everyone will embrace. By sidelining the existential terror that made the series culturally seismic, it risks muting its own legacy.
The question now is what happens next. Despite critical praise, the film struggled commercially. That disconnect complicates the future of the franchise. Reinvention can be healthy. Drift, however, is another matter.
The Bone Temple is technically accomplished and narratively bold – but whether it strengthens the saga or quietly distances it from its core is a debate that may define its long-term place in horror history.
Will it return to its roots? Stay until the end and get hyped.
Thanks for reading!
Please, don’t forget to share. If you enjoy my work and dedication to film, please feel free to support me on https://www.patreon.com/kaygazpro. Any contribution is much appreciated and valued.
Solidarity for all the innocent lives that suffer the atrocities of war!
Stay safe!
