Review | 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

David L argues that ’28 Years Later – The Bone Temple’ is more than just another high-octane horror movie.

The latest in the recently revived series of British horror films, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple found itself with the challenge of building upon its critically acclaimed predecessor. The sequel is the second in a trilogy, with a script co-written by the original creatives Alex Garland and Danny Boyle. However, in a series first, it has been handed to American director, Nia Dacosta. This led some to question whether this would match up, given the last entry helmed by a non-British director, 28 Weeks Later, is generally considered the weakest of the franchise. Whilst not as overtly suffused with Britishness as the first film in the new trilogy, The Bone Temple still deals very well with how a post-apocalyptic Britain reflects on our society today. It does this by asking (in an implied, roundabout way) the question: Who is the Devil? This might seem like a silly question, but the film asks it in all earnest, and in doing it dislodges a foundational assumption of most horror films – the idea there must be a monster.

Following on from 28 Years, the film continues the storylines of Spike (Alfie Williams) and Dr Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes). Kelson, a former GP, continues his vigil at the ossuary of Bones, a memorial for all those who had died in the national viral pandemic, and monitors a local ‘Alpha’ member of the infected, Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). Kelson has had to subdue Samson in the past with morphine darts, and the Alpha now seeks out the euphoria of the opioid by attempting to provoke Kelson into shooting him. Kelson decides to use this as an opportunity to get closer to the infected and learn more about him, beginning an unlikely friendship. Meanwhile, Spike has ended up with a group of other survivors, a gang qua cult led by Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell). Crystal and his followers, known collectively as ‘Fingers’ but each all (re)named ‘Jimmy’, are a kind of apocalyptic band of apostles, going around torturing and killing others in service to ‘Old Nick’ (a nick-name for Satan). By chance, their roaming brings them into contact with Kelson, and in this encounter is not only a clash between two men, but between two systems of belief.

The previous film subverted audience expectations of high-octane horror by choosing to relegate any action of that kind to the first act. What appeared in trailers as a mission into the mainland for some unknown purpose turned out to be nothing more than an extremely dangerous manhood ritual for a twelve year old boy. The adult character(s) conducted themselves less with grim macho determination than with glee at killing the infected, whom they gladly dehumanised. These and other acts were justified on the basis that they were needed for survival. 

The Bone Temple follows on from the first film’s initial questioning of these beliefs and proceeds to completely unmake them. Through Jimmy and the Fingers, the idea of British people justifying the violence they do to others through self-deluding narratives reaches fever pitch parody. The glee of Spike’s dad in the first film finds a dark reflection in their infantile sadism. The Fingers appear as a fascistic gang, but in this work the narratives of bygone eras of Britain, noble wartime leaders, and British benevolence across the world are replaced by a childish enjoyment of Tellytubbies, a disturbing imitation of Jimmy Saville (whose reputation was never posthumously ruined in this world), and acts of depraved torture which they call ‘charity.’ In order to even join them, one needs to kill a Finger. In contrast, the characterisation of the infected such as Samson, seems much more sympathetic. The 28 Days Later series has always resisted easy dichotomies between human and infected, but the past two films refuse it entirely and remind us that if such people existed, they would still be human beings. 

That said, there is no simple reversal of good and bad here. If I had to choose an artistic predecessor to The Bone Temple, I would choose Kurt Vonnegut. The American writer and socialist recounted in his novel Slaughterhouse Five that his father once remarked to him, ‘You know – you never wrote a story with a villain in it.’ To be a bit provocative, I would argue it’s the same case here. Every character is portrayed as a human being. Even Jimmy Crystal, as repulsive as he is, constructs the narratives he uses to manipulate his followers because to face reality would be to deal with crushing loss and grief. Characters who find themselves the targets of the Fingers violence do unsympathetic things themselves. The Fingers themselves are disturbing in their acts, but you get the impression they do not enjoy it as much as they claim they do. But to stop hurting other people would be to reckon with their actions, and with themselves and what they have actually lost. 

Kelson, who is effectively the main character of the film, is also its moral heart. Whereas others choose to hold onto survival driven isolationism or satanist cruelty, Kelson holds onto the half-remembered spirit of the NHS – freely given compassion with no charge. Kelson spends time with Samson, listens patiently to Jimmy Crystal talk about his life, and ultimately tries to help anyone he can. As he said in the first film, memento mori, memento amoris – remember death, remember love. Ironically, all of this rings a bit truer with the absence of such a system (as many can attest, the NHS has always struggled to truly treat all its patients equally).

What all of this creates in the film itself is a peculiar kind of anti-horror. Perhaps I am speaking only of myself here, but I found there was none of the usual squeamish fascination at watching violent horror. Each and every death felt unpleasant and senseless, and I did not feel satisfied watching them, even when they happened to people who, in the context of the film’s story, deserved it. The opening itself ranks up there for one of the most disturbing I’ve ever seen in a horror movie. Perhaps this might seem self-defeating for a film of this kind, but I think it used these deaths to further its message that the only way out of this situation is through compassion. In fact, it seems to suggest that the entire reason things have gotten so bad is because the response to them has been devoid of it. The world has isolated Britain and the UN/NATO has established a kind of border rule quarantine around it. Perhaps if a different tack had been taken, it all could have been avoided. But that is all in the past, what is left is to deal with the present. 

Using the Fingers cult as its target, The Bone Temple presents an atheist belief in compassion. It refuses the idea of an ultimate evil, of an inhuman mob which you can slaughter indiscriminately. At one point later in the film, somebody asks Kelson (who has been mistaken for the Devil because his skin is covered in Iodine) if he is old Nick. To this he says: ‘Nothing is. No one is. There’s just us.’ Without an ultimate enemy to lay blame on, we are left with the realisation that it lies entirely with ourselves to change the society we live in. In order to take the first step forward, we need to discard all the comforting myths and lies we tell ourselves, and face reality as it actually is. Care requires that we think beyond ourselves; in order to perform care, what is required is a new world. Even amidst the barbarism, a revolutionary must remember love.