28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

Missed this one in the theaters and only catching up now. This sequel didn't feel impressionable to me. While 28 Years Later set up poetic themes that felt fresh to me last year, this sequel building on those themes felts like a regression. As I understand it, the metaphors used in this film are to allude to cultural decay in the apocalyptic order. This I can get behind, but there was more opportunity for this metaphor to be a little bit more nuanced. The fingers are this cartoon villain-esque torture group which was just boring to watch when they could have been so much more interesting. Even if they just swapped the Mormons in it would have been more fun to watch than this Falun Gong type shit. 

Also it was insulting to have Samson put on loincloth 20 mins into the movie. You knew how much the masses liked the zombie dick in the last film. You are making a trilogy of zombie films and this is the second movie which you've preemptively structured to end on a cliffhanger and and therefore hard to stand on its own, which should already be an embarrassing move. You can't show a little good will by showing a little more zombie pole? That's suddenly beneath you? 

(Slight spoiler below)

The only saving grace was Ralph Fiennes's phenomenal performance, especially towards the end. I laughed out loud. That campy-ness managed to bring this film back a bit for me. Good luck making the third movie work without him