28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is out in cinemas right now, and it’s one of the best zombie flicks of 2026. Provided you already got context from 28 Years Later, since this is a sequel that dives straight to the meat of it, no recaps & all.

Part 2 also ended spectacularly, so it’s worth getting some closure out of the 28 Years Later story. For our spoiler-free review, head here. If you want to find out what happened at the end, read further.

The gist of the show is one part about Sir Jimmy Crystal(Sir Jimmy Crystal) and his group’s murderous survival rampage, with Spike (Alfie Williams) joining them. Why? Because Spike feels indebted to Jimmy and co. for saving his life at the end of 28 Years Later. Spike begins to regret his choices, though he did form an alliance with Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman) who is sick of Sir Jimmy’s lies and nonsense.

Meanwhile, the other half of the film focuses on Dr Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes). Dr Kelson apparently can cure alpha zombie Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) of his virus, stating that his final mix of medicine and morphine can take away the things that messes with the infected people mess vision, nerves, and brain. Dr Kelson stated that infected attack babies and helpless people, coming to the conclusion that infected are hallucinating what isn’t happening and eventually triggering their rage.

After Samson gets that last batch of meds in him, he zones out. And then ends up going to the abandoned subway train (from the first film), gets a flashback when he wasn’t infected, and gains his sanity back. He’s still super strong so he manages to kill all zombies who attack him there.

Elsewhere, Sir Jimmy Crystal meets and talks to Dr Kelson in the daytime (after some scouting from Jimmy Ink) while he lets his Jimmy gang wait out at the back. After some introspective talking, turns out that Dr Kelson isn’t his dad Satan. Sir Jimmy makes a deal to have Dr Kelson pose as his Satan dad or else he kills Dr Kelson in a gruesome fashion.

Dr Kelson prepares for the night to put on a Satan dance ritual complete with Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast”, fiery pyrotechnics and all. The Jimmy gang somehow bought it. Also, this bit is great and will probably be clipped and posted online when the digital version comes out.

Dr Kelson gives commands to Sir Jimmy and his group so that they can piss right off and leave Dr Kelson in peace. However, he notices one of the masked Jimmy members is Spike, who he bonded with in the last film with his dead mom cremation and saving him from Samson last time. Dr Kelson as Satan does a 180 and adds in one more command: have Sir Jimmy as a sacrifice which then gives Jimmy Ink the opportunity to permanently deal with Sir Jimmy and his tyrannical ways.

Sir Jimmy retaliates by fatally stabbing Dr Kelson, but not before getting knocked out by Spike and Jimmy Ink. The other Jimmys ended up getting killed by Jimmy Ink since they’re loyal to Sir Jimmy until the end.

Spike apologises to Dr Kelson, but he forgives him, stating that this was inevitable. As one final kind act for the dying Dr Kelson, Jimmy Ink nails Sir Jimmy upside down onto a cross, having it planted close to the main bone temple in the centre. Just before dying, Dr Kelson gets a visit from Samson, thanking him for the cure to the virus.

We also get a last-minute jumpscare of Samson killing Sir Jimmy. Because horror films still need that mandatory trope somehow.

28 days later, we cut to a house by the seaside. And then we get our long-awaited cameo: an older Jim from 28 Days Later played by Cillian Murphy (who also produced 28 Years Later and this sequel). He is home-schooling his daughter (who is clearly from her mother’s side Selena) about European history, harping on the phrase about people who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it.

They hear zombie and survivor cries outside; both of them head out with weapons and use their scope to see who’s there. Turns out it’s Jimmy Ink/Kellie and Spike running from a horde of infected. They rush out to help them after slight hesitation from Jim, leaving room for a possible follow-up.

So What’s Next?

Well, we may have Samson heading out to survive and finding a way to tell people about getting cured. With the amount of people Samson killed however, that may be tough especially if he bumps into people who recognize him.

Spike might head back to his village from the first film to see how the baby and his dad are doing. And will probably team up with Jim and his daughter for future zombie post-apocalyptic adventures alongside Jimmy Ink/Kellie.

Producers Alex Garland and Danny Boyle stated that 28 Years Later will be a trilogy of new films in the same zombie universe, so we may be getting a third film with those potential storylines, depending on how 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple does internationally. The reviews are great so far, so the outlook is positive.

Closing Thoughts

We loved the usage of Duran Duran in the film’s soundtrack. Dr Kelson has great taste in music.