Starring Alfie Williams, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell

Directed by Nia DaCosta

Sony – In Cinemas now

Following the events of 28 Years Later, 12-year-old Spike is inducted into Jimmy Crystal’s murderous gang, while Dr Kelson makes a discovery that could change the course of the apocalypse.

As the record will show, I was greatly disappointed by Danny Boyle’s long awaited return to the ‘28’ franchise last year. While it had its moments, 28 Years Later was structurally all over the place, consisting of two very similar first acts, before lurching into a portentous third, that buckled under the weight of its own emotionally implausible seriousness. It was both humourless and not frightening in any way. Consequently I returned for part two – The Bone Temple – more out of duty than expectation…

…which perhaps was the optimum way to experience it, as an hour and forty-nine minutes later I realised I had had the best post-apocalyptic ride for many a long year.

Things kick off with young Spike (Alfie Williams) fighting for his life as a rite of passage in front of Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell bizarrely channelling Ewan MacGregor at his most effete) to earn his place in Crystal’s gang of Jimmies – so called because they are all dressed in track suits and blond wigs in honour of the disgraced DJ Jimmy Saville – albeit in the colours of the pre-school Teletubbies (the programme Jimmy C was watching when the infection struck). The Jimmies – who in other respects are a reincarnation of Alex’s Droogs from A Clockwork Orange, only a lot less charming – are a Satanist cult, travelling the country doing extremely nasty things to people… and when | nasty, I mean proper, full-on, 18 Certificate horror nasty. It’s wonderful stuff, if you have a taste for gross-out violence suffused with distinctly unsettling humour. Unlike the first 28 Years Later movie this is properly scary, hide-behind-your-fingers stuff, and unlike 28 Years Later, The Bone Temple doesn’t fall into the trap of taking itself too seriously.

This counterpoint of hard core horror and humour continues as we return to Ralph Fiennes’s iodine smeared Dr Kelson, the architect of the titular Bone Temple. We find him humming Duran Duran to himself as he goes about his merry bone collecting ways before an encounter with Samson – the growling, roaring, massively endowed Alpha from the previous film – which promises to turn everything we have learned about this zombie world (yes!!! I know they’re not zombies!!!) on its head.

When the two strands finally come together in a battle for supremacy between Kelson and Crystal, it leads to an eye-poppingly satisfying denouement. It isn’t just brilliantly cinematic – it’s brilliantly WTF cinematic. Neither Ralph Fiennes nor Iron Maiden will be seen in the same light ever again. Not since Jim Broadbent’s rendition of Like A Virgin in Moulin Rouge has an actor leapt into the deep-end so deliciously.

What distinguishes 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple from its predecessors is the stamp of its director Nia DaCosta, new to the franchise. The two 28 Years films manifest as almost diametrically opposed visions of the same world. I was intrigued to see how many of the ideas seeded in Boyle’s movie had been unceremoniously dumped. There’s no mention of an uninfected Europe. We’ve forgotten about the zombie baby from part one. There’s no sign of Spike’s dad (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) nor mention of his old community. The gimmicky use of iPhone cinematography is thankfully dispensed with. The annoying chubby zombies have been deftly jettisoned. By rediscovering humour and irony, the characters have become believable once again, and the horror is properly contextualized so it can truly ping. The differences are so marked it’s hard to believe that Alex Garland is credited with authoring both scripts, not least because of Bone Temple’s structural elegance.

Verdict: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is undeniably bonkers – but it’s watchably bonkers; hugely entertaining; warm and humane at times; and genuinely scary when it needs to be. 8/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com