Perspective
Spoilers ahead

Much like the shambling hordes of undead or infected seen on the screen, the zombie movie industry has been lurching in a semi-conscious stupor since “The Walking Dead,” “World War Z” and “Night of The Living Dead.” But thanks to the combined efforts of Alex Garland and Danny Boyle, the genre isn’t dead yet.

Acting as the fourth movie in the “28 ____ Later series,” writer Garland (“Ex Machina,” “Annihilation,” “Warfare”) and director Nia DaCosta (“Candyman,” “The Marvels”) create a bone-chilling mix of horror, action and comedy in their 2026 movie “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” the second film in the “28 Years Later” trilogy.

The plot is a sizable step up when compared to “28 Years Later,” which was released last year. Not only has the pacing been improved, “The Bone Temple” builds heavily on the themes and story beats found in the first film, while still introducing new concepts to contest the characters.

Set in an apocalyptic version of Great Britain 28 years after the breakout of a virus that puts the infected into states of blind rage, the movie follows the protagonists from the first movie, as Spike (Alfie Williams) is forced to join a cult of satanists donning wigs and outfits resembling disgraced British rockstar Jimmy Savile. Each member has names that are variations of “Jimmy.” The leader of the cult, a character that we were introduced to in a gripping action scene in the first minutes of “28 Years Later,” is a charismatic and intimidating man going by “Ser Lord Jimmy Crystal” (Jack O’Connell).

The Jimmies’ spree of terror eventually leads to conflict with another protagonist from the first movie, a former doctor named Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes). Kelson has been spending all of his time since the first movie studying an infected man named Samson (Chi Lewis-Perry). Samson has been showing small signs of intelligence behind the curtain of the rage-inducing virus.

The film’s plot does a fantastic job at making the audience despise the film’s antagonists, the Jimmies, such as during a gruesome scene where they savage a small community in terrible fashion.

While the plot is a step up from “28 Years Later,” the strongest part of the movie was its character writing by Garland. The first, and best, character that the film displays is Dr. Ian Kelson.

Since the bloody apocalypse almost three decades prior, Kelson has isolated himself to the banks of a winding river, surrounding himself with large pillars of bones and skulls as a memorial for all of those that the infection had claimed. As a doctor, Kelson has a sanctity for human life that Ralph Fiennes manages to soak into every line of dialogue, displaying him as a genuinely kind face in the middle of the superficial horror of the Bone Temple. This kindness leads him to forming a bond with a leader of the infected, a massive “alpha” that he named Samson.

It can’t be emphasized enough just how impactful Chi Lewis-Perry’s acting is to Samson’s character. At the start of the film, viewers see how the rage virus has completely clouded his mind, with the film sprinkling in demonic and horrifying imagery whenever he is on screen, giving a peek into his inner mind. But as Kelson begins to influence the infected, viewers witness Lewis-Perry begin to interlace moments of lucidity into his character, giving hope that perhaps he is not too far gone.

Another fantastic performance is Jack O’Connell’s as Ser Lord Jimmy, leader of the Jimmies. Hot off his hit performance of Remmick in Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” O’Connell shows just how good he is at playing menacing cult leaders.

Ser Lord Jimmy is not only cruel and violent, but he commits these instances of intense violence in an almost reverent demeanor, framing the Jimmies as missionaries giving Tithes to Satan, who he calls “Old Nick.” However, O’Connell manages to weave in moments of genuine sincerity while keeping an air of tense malice, such as when he speaks with Dr Kelson. He paints Ser Lord Jimmy as a fundamentally broken person, whose mind has simply been shattered by witnessing the horrors of the infection at such an early age.

Unfortunately, not every character stood out. The most bothersome of the weaker characters was the first movie’s protagonist, a small boy named Spike. In the first film, Spike goes through an arc of maturing and discovering his ability to come to terms with death and grow as a better person. However, in this film Spike acts like more of a point of view character. Although being played incredibly well by actor Alfie Williams, Spike doesn’t manage to have the same staying power as other main characters.

The other members of the Jimmies also share Spike’s flaw of having too little to do. Except for two of them, the other Jimmies’ only purpose in the movie is to be evil, intimidate and die. This is primarily an issue because the film spends a sizable chunk of the first half displaying these characters, but there isn’t enough of them to compel the audience.This is not to say that they are terrible characters, just that they are extremely one-dimensional when compared to the complexity of the other characters on display.

The sound design and soundtrack of the film were fantastic. Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (“Joker,” “Tár”) manages to place viewers into the mindset of the rage-fueled infection with the use of droning strings interrupted by sharp percussive strikes when the scene calls for it. Combining that with scenes shown from Samson’s point of view, each noise is sharp and almost painful, with faint whisperings coloring the rare moments of dead silence.

The film excels at immersing viewers, not through the mind of the survivors, but the mind of the infected. From the needless cruelty of the Jimmies, to the startling and downright aggravating sound design, the film not only puts you on the edge of your seat, but also frustrates and brings you closer to the state that the infected are in.