Review: 28 Years Later - The Bone Temple
The dead have been risen for decades at this point, and humanity has worse things to worry about now. Far from an ordinary zombie flick, The Bone Temple crackles with unpredictable energy.
There aren't that many of them, but the zombie songs in my Halloween playlist are all quite diverse. There's Nigerian afro-beat, straight-forward American rock, and mid-western chamber folk.* The diversity found in zombie songs rarely applies to zombie movies, unfortunately. You typically get exactly what you expect when you queue up a zombie flick or television show, no matter the setting or the nation of origin. So while the quality of the storytelling may differ, Train to Busan deals in the same themes and tropes as Walking Dead, Season 6, or The Last of Us, Season 1 or either version of Dawn of the Dead. As much as I truly love some of those pieces of entertainment, I rarely crave a new zombie tale these days. Imagine my joy, then, to discover that the latest entry into one of our most revered zombie franchises is barely a zombie movie at all. The advertising hinted that this was a departure, but I expected that the movie would simply add a handful of elements to the tried and true zombie structure and those were simply the elements that the trailer focused on. Truly, though, while there is still enough zombie stuff to justify the setting, The Bone Temple is something else entirely. And its awesome.
The engine of The Bone Temple is based on two characters and their eventual collision. You have Ralph Fiennes as a doctor who is living alone, listening to records, and working on rehabilitating a local "Alpha" zombie with a daily dose of morphine and quality bonding time. Then you have Jack O'Connell as the leader of a vicious cult of Satanists who call themselves the Jimmies and dole out "charity" to everyone they meet (you can imagine what a Satanist's version of charity might be). O'Connell sort of believes that his father is Satan himself, and he definitely wants his followers to all-the-way believe it so that he has the credibility to avoid any inconvenient backtalk or bouts of morality from his soldiers. When the Jimmies come across Fiennes unconventional personage, and the temple of bones he has built as a mass grave for those lost to the rage virus, they wonder if they have in fact tracked down Satan at long last. There is a third main character, a young boy who accidentally finds himself as an unwilling participant in O'Connell's gang, but I could honestly take or leave that plotline. It's the fascinating duality of Fiennes and O'Connell that makes the movie.
What's funny is that I put this on assuming that it was the long-awaited third film in the franchise. I had seen the first two movies many years ago, and largely enjoyed them (though my aforementioned zombie fatigue has prevented regular viewings). It turns out that there was actually a 28 Years Later movie that came out last year, and this was a direct sequel with characters and plot points introduced in the previous movie. Amazingly, it didn't matter. I picked up the plot and followed the character journeys with no issue, and I kind of have no notes. O'Connell, who crushed in last years' Sinners, shines once again as a villain who coerces a group of followers to try and see his mission through. In this case, his mission amounts to little more than traversing the post-apocalyptic landscape and assimilating those he sees value in, while torturing and murdering the rest. Ralph Fiennes, unsurprisingly for an actor of his stature, is even better as the pragmatic yet compassionate Dr. Kelson, a man who has found a way to process the profound sadness of the ruined world and live a life of meaning. Incredibly, the climax of the film pits these two against each other to the diegetic soundtrack of Iron Maiden's metal classic, "The Number of the Beast". It's the best scene in the film, and probably my favorite scene of the year.
I have one more movie in this year's marathon, and it is, in fact, another zombie movie. I've heard good things, but I can only hope that it delights in such unexpected ways as 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Anyway, we're almost done with another one, you maniacs. Keep checking in as Scott and I close out the spooky season with a few more reviews, and I hope you've found something to watch along the way that will enhance your October.
*Yes of course I'll list them out for you. I'm including the Frankenstein ones, too, because he's basically a zombie and I neglected to do so during my multiple Frankenstein-related reviews this year:
Zombie - Fela Kuti
Thriller - Michael Jackson
They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhh!! - Sufjan Stevens
Frankenstein - Clutch
Zombie Zoo - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
Feed My Frankenstein - Alice Cooper
Teenage Frankenstein - Alice Cooper
Zombies on the Metro - The Darts US
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