28 Years Later: The Bone Temple - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray SteelBook

The unfortunate part of a franchise rebirth that doesn’t fully stick the landing is that the excellent follow-up suffers the fallout. Truthfully, I don’t know what some people expected from 28 Years Later. If nothing else, the film was true to the kind of work Alex Garland and Danny Boyle have been producing over the last 20 years. While I might have a bone spur to pick for Boyle’s visual stylings against the needs of story substance, I thought that film was a terrific reentry to a bleak world owned by the ravenous Infected. But it’s Nia DaCosta who got to take the ball and slam it in for the winning goal with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. 

The last time we saw the iodine-soaked Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), he’d helped young Spike (Alfie Williams) face the eventuality of death while also celebrating life. In turn, Kelson has also been able to leverage a standing peace with the Alpha Infected, whom he named Samson (Chi Lewis-Perry) while working out a potential treatment for the virus. The last time we saw young Spike, he was being rescued by Sir Jimmy (Jack O’Connell) and his gang of blonde wig-wearing track-suited Jimmys. But this was far from a “rescue” as Spike finds himself caught in a nest of brutal, savage murderers who answer only to Jimmy and his personal connection to the Devil. But then Kelson and Jimmy cross paths, a chance meeting will become a reckoning between chaotic good and genuine evil. 

Damn, if there was ever a reason not to give up a franchise, this was it. While I enjoyed 28 Years Later as a strong setup, The Bone Temple is the payoff. As evidenced by the anemic global box office take, some folks out there didn’t get the message. Effectively flatlining on arrival, this magnificent follow-up is a more balanced sequel, content to deliver gastly horrors without the unnecessary over-the-top visual spectacle that tripped up the last film. And it is genuinely horrifying in more ways than one. 

Once again, Jack O’Connell proves to be horror’s foil for another magnetic villain as he’s styled to look like Britain's own real-life monster Jimmy Savile (seriously, if you don’t know who he is, it’s horrifying to learn about that SOB). Merely teased by the upside-down body in the farmhouse during Jamie and Spike’s excursion on the mainland, we now get to see Jimmy and his Fingers (All called a variation of Jimmy) unleashed.  

It’s the kind of gnarly, messed-up material that was underserved in the last installment, but fits in right at home with the franchise. As we’ve seen numerous times with other “Zombie” films, you can only get so much mileage out of mindless flesh-ripping carnage. It’s the conscious mutilation of humanity at its worst that drives the horror of this sequel. Make no mistake, there’s plenty of Infected action, but this time we see a beast of a different sort to chill us to the bone. 

Through the chaos of this middle chapter, DaCosta maintains the same sort of frenetic energy and visceral appeal of the series, but manages to do it without getting lost in the weeds of style. There’s a welcome lack of a “gimmick” to carry the action along. While certainly visually arresting, the focus on the characters and their situation makes this the more compelling entry in this 28 Years sub-franchise-within-a-franchise. 

But people didn’t go see it in theaters, missing out on recouping its production and marketing budget by a wide margin. With where the film ends, it’d be a shame if Alex Garland’s little sub-trilogy of screenplays dies here. I hope that this film rents well on digital and sells enough discs to keep the series afloat. While Sony technically greenlit the third film, it’s yet to go into production (reportedly, it was expected to start filming last month). Updates have been deathly quiet since this film came to screens. Sad as it may be, but if this is to be the end, well, as Dr. Kelson might say: memento vivere. 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple builds a monument to physical media with a single-disc 4K UHD + Digital SteelBook release from Sony. Pressed on a BD100 disc, the SteelBook artwork is bathed in red, with a new skull motif on the front and a new version of the biohazard symbol on the back. The disc loads to a static image main menu with standard navigation options and the bonus features panel along the right side of the screen. 

Quick technical note: the disc seems to have an issue past the load bar screen when you insert it into certain players. My office Samsung unit took a long time to get to the main menu. A bathroom break and a visit to the kitchen for a sandwich later, it had gotten there, but it took several minutes. Comparatively, my backup Sony and primary Oppo rigs had no trouble diving right in. If this is a broader issue, Sony may need to look into it and figure out a replacement.

Forgoing iPhone cameras for more traditional cinema-grade digital rigs, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple haunts 4K UHD with an impressive 2160p 2.39:1 Dolby Vision transfer that is just as visually intense and gritty-looking as the previous films without trying to be as needlessly flashy. We get a similar grimy intensity but no odd-ball, herky-jerky, bullet-time cameras (which my migraines appreciate). Like past entries, colors can be heightened and the visual staging elaborate, but it looks crisp and clean, and also in keeping with the films that came before. The opening with Jimmy introducing Spike to the Fingers, and later horrors we witness in the farmhouse, allow that balance of saturated colors and deep, moody dark spaces to come to life. Then we get to the fiery climax, and this film’s visual flair and style smash home. All the while, the Dolby Vision grade keeps the visuals lively, attending to the color choices without sacrificing natural skin tones, and delivering deep, inky black levels and shadow shading for added visual depth. No 1080p disc was included, so I can’t immediately say this is better, but I’m very pleased with how this came out after seeing it in theaters a couple of times. 

On the audio scale, this was a dynamite Atmos track. Similar to the last film the intensity of a horde of Infected crashing through a building or screaming in the distance is not lost in this more tightly-arranged sequel. Because it doesn’t have to reestablish the world this franchise lives in, The Bone Temple gets to play up close and bloody with the characters and their immediate surroundings. A flashback to a train before Infection is a haunting auditory sequence. Getting to see the inside of Kelso’s dwellings offers up its own unique experience. But then we get to the barn… and that was a harrowing piece of sound design using the surround channels and overheads in some uncomfortable ways. And while that was all gnarly and good, it’s the film’s Iron Maiden-infused climax that wins the mix! Covering all of the basics, dialogue is cleanly heard throughout without issue. LFE is nicely appointed with plenty of impact, especially during the more active moments, but there are a few squishy parts that get a little extra rumble in the subs. All around, a great mix for this flick.

Similar to the previous film’s 4K disc experience, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple doesn’t smash out a ton of extra features, nor are they lengthy, but they’re interesting and worth the time. DaCosta also delivers a solo commentary that’s a very interesting listen, balancing scene-specific trivia against technical details. The featurettes are again very focused and interesting to the topic at hand, but also sadly very short. Given that these films were shot back-to-back, I would have loved to see a full-bore Making-Of documentary for these sequels. Maybe next time…if there is one.

• Audio Commentary featuring Nia DaCosta
• The Doctor and the Devil (HD 6:16)
• New Blood (HD 6:07)
• Beneath the Rage (HD 5:19)
• Infected Takes: Bloopers (HD 2:44)
• Deleted Scene (HD 00:52)

Like a novel where you don’t know how it’s going to end, sometimes you just gotta get to the next chapter for it all to make sense. Sadly, movie-going audiences today don’t seem to be that patient. While I wouldn’t call 28 Years Later perfect, I thought it was very good and set up something unique and different for the franchise. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is that payoff. It’s a more personable and in-your-face, viscerally horrifying entry where the Infected aren’t the only monsters to fear. DaCosta delivers another excellent horror film in her growing catalog, and I’m bummed audiences didn’t come out to see this one in theaters. Again, Ralph Fiennes steals the show as Jack O’Connell turns in another memorable performance as a horror villain, while Alfie Williams’ Spike navigates the ongoing childhood loss of innocence. It’s a hell of a film, and it comes home with a heck of a 4K release. An excellent Dolby Vision transfer is butressed with a terrific Atmos track. Bonus features are still slim, but they’re interesting, but this film is treated with an interesting director's commentary with DaCosta. As I hope for news of the third 28 Years Later film going into production, I’m calling this franchise sub-trilogy middle entry Highly Recommended