28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

Given that the pre-credits teaser of 28 Years Later made me pull a face like Mr. Yuk, The Bone Temple had a lot going against it. It’s definitely my issue that I’m not into British culture circa the time that the rage virus ended England, but it was really, really tough to give a shit about the Jimmys and what they represented, and ultimately don’t think that, in 2025-2026, there’s much more road to travel when it comes to “humans are the real monsters” apocalyptic horror movies. 

Ralph Fiennes, though! Whatever you make of his wobbly memory of the global order seeming unshakable at the dawn of the new millennium (some of that Alex Garland subtlety, cue knowing crowd laughter), his Dr. Kelson a relic of that world, someone who believes that the shattered fragments of his world can be set right, and who works, without praise or thanks, to make it happen. 

I think it will take the arc of the third movie for me to figure out how I feel about Samson. There’s a glint of Adam/God in his relationship to Kelson, and if that teeters towards ennobling the savage to resolve the trilogy then, yeesh, what were we even doing here. But Chi Lewis-Perry looks good contemplating the stars, and Fiennes conveys genuine care for him, an act that completes his own character’s arc in an utterly compelling way. Faced with the prospect of being murdered by the Jimmys, he fears dying, not out of cowardice, but because he has come back to his own humanity in making friends with and caring for a sick person. Whoever did the choreography deserves a medal. 

Also, I can only imagine what a British pressing of the double 10-inch edition of Kid A goes for on the Discogs equivalent that exists in the non-quarantined world.