Nia DaCosta Injects New Blood Into “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple”

In “The Bone Temple,” the afloat grade of Jimmy’s evil is revealed aboriginal on. So, too, is the scope of O’Connell’s surface villainy, nary little impressively showcased by his caller crook arsenic a vampire successful “Sinners.” Jimmy is simply a gleefully sadistic slayer of the surviving and the undead alike, and a sworn lad of Satan, arsenic evidenced by the upside-down transverse astir his neck. His afloat name, helium insists, is Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, which distinguishes him from the galore different Jimmys who marque up his set of murderous young disciples, known arsenic the Fingers. (They spell by Jimmy Fox, Jimmy Ink, Jimmy Jimmy, Jimmy Jones, Jimmy Snake, Jimmy Shite, and Jimmima.)

Spike is forced to go a Jimmy himself, by warring 1 of the different Jimmys to the decease and taking his spot successful the gang. It’s an ugly, ruthless, and nastily allusive scene. The Fingers are intelligibly modelled connected the giggling, rampaging hooligans of “A Clockwork Orange” (1971), and their evil deeds consciousness astatine erstwhile consciously premeditated and merrily anarchic. They’re overmuch worse, and much frightening, than thing the infected could unleash. All of which is to accidental that “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is alternatively little of a zombie movie than expected. Attacks by the infected are fewer and acold between, and astir of the unit connected show is meted retired by the Jimmys. It brought my squeamishness backmost successful afloat force. Most repellent of each is simply a slow-burn series successful which the Jimmys, having stumbled connected a tiny assemblage of survivors, proceed to drawstring them up successful a barn and gradually, meticulously flay them alive. What makes your ain tegument crawl isn’t conscionable the hideousness of the unit but the unblinking matter-of-factness with which DaCosta films it. She serves it consecutive up, without gusto—and does not permission you bare for more.

DaCosta’s chiseled ocular interaction is evident from the opening scenes. Notably, she has reteamed with the British cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, who filmed her 2 erstwhile features, the dynamic Ibsen adaptation “Hedda” (2025) and the middling superhero blockbuster “The Marvels” (2023). Gone are the smeary integer palette and whip-panning kineticism of “28 Years Later,” which was recognizably the merchandise of Boyle’s agelong collaborations with the cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and the exertion Jon Harris. The frenzied, nerve-rattling vigor of their techniques made sense; aft truthful galore years, they yanked america backmost into post-apocalyptic Britain with a bracingly nasty jolt. DaCosta, instead, incarnates a watchful stillness; hers is simply a statelier, much ominously composed doomsday vision. It’s arsenic if, with the dystopian parameters duly established, she wanted america to tarry alongside the characters for a portion and marque ourselves decently uncomfortable.

Garland’s publication is simply a survey successful extremes, toggling determinedly betwixt visceral, stomach-churning fearfulness and a much meditative, mind-altering register—the second supplied astir wholly by Ralph Fiennes’s magnificently witty and poignant show arsenic Dr. Ian Kelson. When Ian was archetypal introduced, successful “28 Years Later,” his filthy, singlet-clad assemblage caked successful orangish iodine (a earthy rage-virus repellent), helium popped up astatine the story’s adjacent similar a friendlier Colonel Kurtz, from “Apocalypse Now” (1979)—a scholarly, wild-eyed eccentric, who has tiptoed close up to the borderline of crackpotdom but, miraculously, not fallen implicit it. This time, he’s a pb subordinate from commencement to finish, and Fiennes teases retired the fullness of the character—the pathos of his isolation, the brilliance of his intellect, and the cardinal generosity of his spirit—as lone a large histrion could. Ian is simply a grounds keeper, a meticulous preserver of the past. But helium is besides a guardian of a aboriginal that, contempt each the decease and suffering he’s seen, helium is excessively overmuch of an optimist to springiness up on.

To that end, Ian spends astir of the caller movie getting blissfully precocious with a hulking zombie nudist (Chi Lewis-Parry), whom the bully doc has tamed into drugged-out submission and named Samson. Their stoner rapport—“The Bone Temple” is, astatine slightest partly, a zombie-hangout movie—enables Ian to survey the rage microorganism up adjacent and spot if its effects mightiness beryllium treated oregon adjacent reversed. Before excessively long, Samson begins to execute a measurement of sentience, which makes him an outlier quality successful a precise Romero vein: an evolved zombie, who regains humanizing vestiges of his pre-undead representation and adjacent rediscovers definite rudimentary powers of communication. The quality brilliantly crystallizes Garland and DaCosta’s astir rigorously developed theme: the crippling nonaccomplishment of individuality and idiosyncratic intent that the zombie pandemic has engendered among the masses, surviving and undead alike.