It’s that time of year again! Time to celebrate the Resurrection with a weeklong plunge into all things zombie! Here’s the history: In 2008, Dr. Girlfriend and I decided to spend a week or so each year marathoning through zombie films that we’d never seen before, and I would blog short reviews. And simple as that, the Easter Zombie Movie Marathon was born.
For the curious, here are links to 2008, 2009 (a bad year), 2010, 2011, 2012 (when we left the blog behind), 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
So, 28 Years Later ended with the biggest WTF moment in film that year, with Jack O’Connell, cosplaying noted serial sex abuser Jimmy Savile, and a group of multi-colored track-suited and blonde-wigged men and women, somersaulting and flipping and doing crazy martial arts with bizarro weapons, killing a pack of Rage zombies as a thrash metal version of the Teletubbies theme plays, thereby saving Spike (Alfie Williams) from imminent peril.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple takes place probably within a day or so of that scene, and while Alex Garland returns as writer, Nia DaCosta has taken on the directing reins for this fourth film in the 28 franchise. The film has immediately abandoned that nonsensical ending in favor of a much more grounded and frightening approach, opening with Spike being forced to fight to the death with one of Jimmy’s Fingers.
Wait. Let’s rewind just a bit again. Jack O’Connell plays Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, the little boy that opened 28 Years Later escaping his Rage-infected vicar father. Now, 28 years later, he is a delusional madman who believes that his father is Old Nick, or Satan. He has seven followers, the Fingers, who all wear blonde wigs and wear track suits and gold chains, emulating Jimmy Savile, who in this timeline was never exposed for the monster he really was, but because the audience knows this, it creates an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance in the viewing experience.
They each have taken on the name Jimmy – they are known as The Jimmys – Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman), Jimmy Fox (Sam Locke), Jimmy Snake (Ghazi Al Ruffai), Jimmy Jones (Maura Bird), Jimmy Jimmy (Robert Rhodes), Jimmy Shite (Connor Newall), and Jimmima (Emma Laird). Spike kills Jimmy Shite and becomes the newest Jimmy, reluctantly joining them on their Satanic crusade to sacrifice people to Old Nick in bloody and violent ways that they refer to as “Charity.”
How’s that?
While Spike is dealing with this nightmare scenario, the good Doctor Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) realizes that the Alpha infected he’s named Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), has become addicted to the morphine from Kelson’s blowgun and keeps returning, allowing himself to be drugged. The two begin to form a kind of friendship, as Samson’s humanity begins to reassert itself.
DaCosta’s vision for this world shifts away from the experimental, sometimes pastoral, approach of Danny Boyle, instead grounding us in the reality of direct interaction with chosen evil, rather than the abstract violence of the Rage Virus. Aside from Samson, there are very few infected in this film, and the danger comes from the Jimmys, who have created a casual art of killing the infected, practically eliminating their threat. This, combined with Dr. Kelson’s rehabilitation of Sampson creates a direct contrast between “Satanic” psychopathic violence and “Atheistic” humanistic compassion.
In a way, it elevates even further the thematic intent that Boyle leaned into for 28 Years Later. While I loved it and recommend it as unmissable, I think that DaCosta turns it up to eleven. I highly recommend watching them back-to-back if possible. It’s quite the experience.
The climactic scene of the film is one of the most dynamic and memorable in recent memory as Ralph Fiennes channels his inner metalhead and performs an insane interpretation of Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast” in an attempt to persuade the Fingers that he is Old Nick (because since he’s covered in iodine and communing with an Alpha, they assume that he’s really the devil – although Sir Lord Jimmy discovers otherwise). This final confrontation as “Old Nick” validates Jimmy’s rule over his henchmen is spectacular, and once he recognizes Spike, takes a twist that resonates nicely watching it this Easter Sunday.
According to Deadline in December 2025, a third sequel was greenlit shortly after the release of Bone Temple, with Garland again writing, Boyle again directing, and Cillian Murphy returning as Jim from 28 Days Later, who reappeared at the end of Bone Temple, homeschooling his daughter Sam (Maiya Eastmond). However, after only bringing in $56.9 million worldwide on a $63 million budget, there’s no official word from Sony at the time of writing as to whether a final film will be produced or not.
How’s that?