28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (18, 109 mins)

Verdict: Brutal but brilliant

Nia DaCosta’s latest venture into the chilling world of survivalist horror, “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” is not a film for the faint-hearted, much like how working in a slaughterhouse might not suit a life-long vegan. This film is a relentless display of brutal and grisly violence, yet it stands out with its bold and brilliant storytelling.

Building on the legacy of its predecessors, the film picks up from Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later” (2025), which itself was a continuation of the terrifying narrative begun with “28 Days Later” (2002) and “28 Weeks Later” (2007). The latest installment in this series continues to explore the dystopian world envisioned by writer Alex Garland.

This sequel, also penned by Garland, draws inspiration from John Wyndham’s classic sci-fi horror, “The Day Of The Triffids,” a story that has captivated audiences through its novel, film, and the acclaimed 1981 TV adaptation. As a teenager, I vividly recall the spine-chilling unease evoked by all forms of Wyndham’s narrative.

Garland’s imagination proves to be as potent and evocative as Wyndham’s, albeit with a significantly harsher edge. Yet, amidst the savagery, Garland injects a dark humor that occasionally provokes genuine laughter, offering a reprieve from the relentless intensity of the horror.

This is the sequel, also written by Garland, who conceived the whole post-apocalyptic horror-scape, by all accounts inspired largely by John Wyndham’s The Day Of The Triffids. I remember as a teenager being thoroughly unnerved by that sci-fi horror story in all its manifestations: as a novel, a film and an excellent 1981 TV drama.

Garland’s vision is just as vividly powerful as Wyndham’s, if a great deal more savage. But the savagery is leavened by a mordant wit, yielding more than a few laugh-out-loud moments.

Also, it’s a stroke of audacious genius to skewer the monster that was the late Jimmy Savile by using him as the model for the film’s deranged, irredeemable baddie.

This is the jewellery-festooned Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), rotten of teeth and velour of tracksuit who, proclaiming himself the son of Satan, or ‘Old Nick’, leads a demonic cult through the countryside, disembowelling people.

Still from a scene in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

Film still from 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Pictured: Ralph Fiennes as Dr Kelson

He’s Savile crossed with Charles Manson, and after a harrowing initiation in the film’s aggressive yank of a curtain-raiser (top tip: don’t settle into your cinema seat even two minutes late) he has recruited a reluctant young Spike (Alfie Williams) into his gang… every one of whom is called Jimmy, by the way, and forced to wear a blond wig.

Meanwhile, at the ‘bone temple’ that he has built out of the remains of the dead, the honourable but wildly eccentric Dr Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) is bonding with the grunting giant he names Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) and trying to find a cure for the devastating pandemic that has wrought so much carnage.

Director DaCosta keeps switching adroitly between these twin narratives, but of course they must eventually collide, and when they do it is electrifying.

One of Sir Jimmy’s more empathetic followers, played by Erin Kellyman (showing impressive versatility after her excellent turn as a bereaved New Yorker in Scarlett Johansson’s recent directing debut, Eleanor The Great), has spotted Kelson from afar. She thinks he must be Old Nick and duly lets Sir Jimmy know.

He in turn recognises a way to bring his cult members even more into line, and what follows is basically The Traitors on acid, with tests of loyalty that not even Claudia Winkleman in her wildest nightmares could have devised.

There is so much mischief at play here, from the soundtrack, in which Duran Duran loom large, to pop-cultural references that stretch from the Teletubbies to Spinal Tap. To enjoy them you’ll have to look beyond the gore, and not everyone will want to look that far; but if you can, there are all kinds of unexpected rewards.

In its startling way it’s a tremendously smart film, satirising religious fundamentalism and politics, too, if you consider certain current world leaders and the unquestioning faithful who idolise them.

It is superbly acted throughout by a splendid cast, with a particular mention for the abundant talent of 15-year-old Williams. He more than holds his own alongside the might of Fiennes and O’Connell, while at the end the cast is further enhanced by Cillian Murphy, briefly resuming the role he played 24 years ago in the first film.

I expect his contribution will be expanded in the next one, as yet untitled, for which Boyle is due to return as director.

I, for one, can’t wait. But then I have a strong stomach.

The Rip (no cert, 133 mins)

Verdict: So-so thriller

Rating:

You’ll require a different type of fortitude to enjoy The Rip, a formulaic Netflix thriller set in Miami, with writer-director Joe Carnahan relying shamelessly and a trifle unimaginatively on the buddy vibes radiated by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

Damon plays Lieutenant Dane Dumars, with Affleck as Sergeant JD Byrne: a pair of rugged, seen-it-all detectives who lead a team to a suburban house following a tip-off, and there find a huge stash of cartel money hidden in the attic.

Carnahan does his best to flesh out Dane and JD as characters (the former is grieving for his ten-year-old son, who died of cancer, the latter for his girlfriend, a fellow cop gunned down by a pair of masked men). But they never really amount to more than Damon and Affleck, doing their thing.

Still, they’re both very good at their thing, and there are glimmers of suspense as we try to guess who the bent cops might be, because the formula decrees that there must be at least one.

This image released by Netflix shows Catalina Sandino Moreno in a scene from ‘The Rip’

Moreover, a top-notch supporting cast includes Kyle Chandler and Teyana Taylor, recipient of a Golden Globe for her madcap performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, and odds-on to add an Academy Award to her mantelpiece soon.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is in cinemas now. The Rip is streaming on Netflix.