Critic Reviews

In spite of the heavy odds stacked against it, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is one of those perfect middle entry movies: It elevates what came before and throws down the gauntlet for whatever might follow.

The Bone Temple once again pulls off the 28 Days Later trick of finding moments of grace at the end of the world, with enough beautiful moments to balance out the grotesque ones.

The Bone Temple does have plenty on its mind about illness and outbreaks—perhaps the sickness that is mankind and the freakshow we doomscroll witness every day— it simply buries those thoughts under layers of bloody viscera and wreckage. That’s the movie’s defining tension: beauty against barbarism, hush against havoc, and the fleeting possibility of grace pressed up against the certainty of carnage.

As the fourth entry in a long-running franchise (written, like its ancestors, by Alex Garland), it is, to borrow a phrase uttered by its protagonist, “miraculous”—and marks this zombie saga as a nightmare with few equals.

Bold, bloody and blisteringly brutal, this exhilarating follow-up to last year’s 28 Years Later grabs its audience by the throat from the off and never loosens its grip.

For genre aficianados, it’s bold, mind-bending work which satisfies that so-often-frustrated craving: for a zombie movie with brains.

The magic of DaCosta's film is that it tells us that, regardless of who you are, what we're all searching for is the same thing: community, and a place to call home.

DaCosta arrives in the world of 28 Years Later with confidence, swagger, and infectious energy, delivering 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple — one of the best horror sequels in recent memory, and a must-see horror film for 2026.

DaCosta’s talents as a director are a terrific, confident match for this material.

The beauty of DaCosta’s film is that these particular ideas are worked in subtly, even though The Bone Temple itself is not what one might call subtle. In fact, it’s downright looney tunes.