Sixteen Continued Screams For Halloween: Day 15 (28 Years Later: The Bone Temple)

 Okay, this just blows my goddamn mind. Our penultimate film here is 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a followup to last year's 28 Years Later. I watched it, had thoughts which I am in the process of sharing here for the thing. I was curious what I said about the previous film, so I went back through the blog to check. Gang. I don't believe this. I watched and discussed 28 Years Later exactly one year ago. It was also the penultimate film of last year's marathon. That's absolutely crazy to me. Anyway, 28 Years Later! According to those words, I thought it was pretty good. I remembered the highlights, and how it ended with that weird sequel tease involving that one guy and his gang. What was their deal going to be? The Bone Temple certainly is about their deal, alright.

I'll level with you. Jimmy and the Jimmies nearly torpedoed the goddamn movie for me. They are a roving gang of giggling lunatic Satanists following this crazy cult leader of personality in Jimmy Crystal, who go around being absolutely monstrous and killing people. It feels for all the world like sadistic grimdark torture porn horseshit where the point is being welcomed to a twisted mind. Ooooh so dark, so fucked-up. So complete nonsense. Not to complain about the movie I wanted vs the movie they made, but I came here for a cool introspective zombie motion picture, not this knockoff Hostel shit. The barn scene where the Jimmies systematically skin some infection survivors alive in a fucked-up ritual to their dark lord is disturbing, yes, but it goes on way the fuck too long. I was ready to drop the movie in the fucking trash, but it has a saving grace: it is not entirely about these blonde fuckheads, even if the protagonist Spike from the last movie is caught in their machinations. He has little to do in this film beyond screaming, crying, and throwing up.

Nah, the real star is Ralph Fiennes returning as Dr. Kelson. Intercut between the Jimmies and their rampage is some fascinating shit involving him empathizing with an alpha infected he names Samson. It's basically doing that "appeal to the latent humanity of zombies" shit that is so intriguing to me: in terms of film it most resembles Day Of The Dead with Bub, but empathizing with zombies will always make me think of my beloved Franchouchou. This is enough to keep the movie from becoming an out and out disaster, as the bond between Kelson and Samson leads to very interesting things. Even when the Jimmies crash into the other plotline, it's this interesting bit of intrigue: Jimmy Crystal has hyped himself up as this big man son of Satan, and he needs Kelson to sell the bit, but Kelson is ready to not only play the part (in a needle drop scene so incredible it earns the film an extra half-star on its own) but also smartly hoist Crystal's beliefs and cult of personality against him. I was expecting him and the bad Jimmies to get ripped to fucking shreds by Samson, but the end he gets is equally cathartic.

In the end, it's a good film. A bit messy, but I have never seen a film redeem itself in the back half as much as this one did. I cannot stress how much I hated the antics of the Jimmies in the first half, and how it was about to sink the film for me. The final moments of this tie into the rest of 28 X Later, with Cillian Murphy from the first one showing up again in a scene that implies continuing adventures in the post-apocalypse featuring Spike. If they make another, I hope it's more even, but this ended up getting a pass in the end. Well then. Only one left, gang. Halloween beckons.

Trick or treat, motherfucker.