The rage virus continues to run rampant in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, but the real threat to humanity may be humans themselves. An exclusive first look at the film, in theaters Jan. 16, promises an expansion of the franchise’s dystopian universe, with more blood-soaked violence, and the rise of a cultlike figure in an England crawling with the infected. Directed by Nia DaCosta and written by Alex Garland, the movie marks the fourth installment in the 28 Years series and a follow-up to Danny Boyle’s recent 28 Years Later, also penned by Garland.
DaCosta took the reins from Boyle only three weeks after his film wrapped last year, but says she wanted to infuse the story with her own sense of calamitous horror. “The thing that connects the two is that they’re both bonkers, idiosyncratic, and very artistically personal works,” DaCosta tells Rolling Stone. “My big pitch when I was talking to the producers, including Danny and Alex, before I came on was, ‘I’m going to make this my own. I’m not going to try to make a Danny Boyle movie.’ Because that’s impossible to make. He’s so special. And it didn’t really interest me.” DaCosta adds of her take, “It’s so hard to describe the tone of the movie that I actually won’t even attempt to. But it keeps the same unique, off-the-wall, surprising energy.”
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple picks up shortly after the events of 28 Years Later, which culminated with Spike (Alfie Williams) encountering Jack O’Connell’s Sir Jimmy Crystal and his gang of blond-haired, velour-suited Jimmies. The sequel follows Spike, whom DaCosta calls “the through line” between the films, as he is forced to join Jimmy’s violent cult, which is on a collision course with Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and his Alpha virus-carrier Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry).
“This film is the weird, deranged cousin to 28 Years Later, who you might be a bit ashamed of because they have weird, questionable interests,” O’Connell tells Rolling Stone. “We see how much nature is the unstoppable force at the end of the day. Nature prevails. The world will take its natural course with or without humans. But I don’t think the infected are purely antagonists in our film. It definitely will make you consider that.”
Image: O’Connell as cult leader Sir Jimmy Crystal with his followers, the Jimmies Credit: MIYA MIZUNO/COLUMBIA PICTURES
“What’s cool about The Bone Temple is we have the Jimmies and their world, and we have Kelson and his world,” DaCosta says. “Spike moves between the two, so it was really fun to be able to have a different style of filming for each character.”
O’Connell describes Jimmy as “extremely dark and twisted,” noting that when you see the character as a child in the first installment of the films, “you see what he bears witness to. That plants an early seed for what he becomes. We’re in an apocalyptic world, and evil and darkness are two of the forces that have been able to still exist, and he revels in them.”
He adds of the introduction of the character in 28 Years Later, “When we meet him, he’s doing good. He seems to be doing something quite positive, but we definitely take him on a journey of twisted gaiety. That is what I was searching for when playing him: twisted gaiety.”
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DaCosta calls O’Connell “a wonder” in the role: “I love him. He is so excellent in this film. After Remmick [his vampire character in Sinners], he’s in his baddie era right now.” While she’s reluctant to reveal too much about Jimmy’s story arc in her movie, she says “you get to see more of what it means for the Jimmies to all be dressed the same and for them to be called the Jimmies, the cult of personality he’s created around himself.”
Image: Chi Lewis-Parry as Alpha rage virus-carrier Samson Credit: MIYA MIZUNO/COLUMBIA PICTURES
DaCosta cast O’Connell in collaboration with Boyle, and she cast his gang of devout followers — what O’Connell characterizes as Jimmy’s “outlaw posse” — herself. They include Emma Laird and Erin Kellyman. “It is strength in numbers and survival of the fittest type, so they’re all ready to go and can handle themselves,” O’Connell explains. “They’re all very warped but intriguing characters.”
The film will feature more backstory on Dr. Kelson and more of his relationship with Samson, a vicious Alpha he regularly sedates but never tries to kill. In the trailer, which drops Wednesday, we see Kelson reach out to touch Samson, and DaCosta teases that their evolving dynamic is a “big part of the movie.” “We’ve seen Samson ripping people’s heads off,” she notes. “But Kelson’s a kook, and he’s doing what he wants to do.”
Shot entirely on location, The Bone Temple will also deepen our understanding of the virus’ devastation around England. “The world expands,” DaCosta says. “We get a glimpse of other types of the 28-years-later effect.” And she promises the action will live up to the cover-your-eyes-scary scenes of 28 Years Later as well as the original series. “As a viewer, I love gore and body horror and visceral effects,” she says. “But when I’m directing it’s more about what effect I want to create and what I want people to feel. There wasn’t a mandate that it had to be super-gory, but there are some moments.”
Image: O’Connell and DaCosta on set Credit: MIYA MIZUNO/COLUMBIA PICTURES
“The trailer does a really good job of putting across a feel and a mood without really alluding too heavily to the storyline,” O’Connell notes. And rest assured, he says of the film, “It goes places, man.”
DaCosta, who also helmed the upcoming film Hedda starring Tessa Thompson, recalls having 28 Days Later on DVD was she was 12. She says she’s grateful for the opportunity to continue exploring the primal world created by Boyle and Garland in 2002. “The concept of the rage virus gives us the opportunity to really talk about humanity,” DaCosta says. “In particular in this film, [it’s about] the nature of evil and how we contextualize that in a world with a lot of belief systems that have been created in order to handle the meaninglessness of existence. That’s one of my favorite things about this genre of film — it’s the look at humanity and what we do to each other. In the film, we have the infected and we have people who aren’t infected. Who’s really doing worse things?”
The Bone Temple stars Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, and Erin Kellyman. It was produced by Boyle, Garland, Andrew Macdonald, Peter Rice, and Bernard Bellew, and executive produced by Cillian Murphy.
From Rolling Stone US
