The Bone Temple

            Last year, we got the first new movie in the 28 universe in almost two decades, and then this year, we already got another installment a year later, and it mostly continues the story from the one that came out last year. It is rare for a franchise to have this short of a turnaround, but less than a year later, we are back! This had many worried that the quality would drop because of the short turnaround, but this was not the case, this held up to the quality of the last one.

            For the plot of this movie to make sense, there needs to be a brief explanation about the Jimmys. So in the last movie, when Spike and his dad were out on a recon mission, they found a dead body with Jimmy carved into it. Then at the end of the movie, Jimmy and his clan had to save Spike because he was about to be cornered by the zombies.

So Jimmy is the leader in his track suit with his long blond hair, and he has a small group of followers. These are his “fingers.” To become a finger, the person must defeat one of the other fingers, thus taking their place, and the newbie gets to pick who they want to fight. They are also named Jimmy, except the girls get to be Jimmima, although they do have an extra word after Jimmy to help distinguish them.

            So once Spike was rescued by them, despite being younger than them all by a good bit was allowed to challenge for a spot. The guy Spike challenges is just toying with him, because Spike is so weak and clearly terrified. Then suddenly, Spike stabs him in Femoral artery on the inside of his quad, and the guy bleeds out, allowing Spike to become a Jimmy.

            Dr. Kelson’s story also continues from the previous film. Kelson has a dart that will send even the strongest of zombies, alphas, into a stupor. The one that he shot in the last film he calls Sampson. As the movie goes, Sampson keeps coming back to Kelson to get shot, so much so that Kelson realizes that it is intentional, Sampson wants the reprieve that the dart is giving him from the virus.

            This turns into an odd relationship, and Kelson starts to trust Sampson, and Sampson does not disappoint. He continues to calm down and show more humanity. The virus is either dying down within him, or it is being suppressed. It almost feels like Kelson is taming a lion, and I could not help but think about how bad these relationships usually go between man and beast, but somehow Kelson and Sampson start to do the drugs together and enjoy each other’s company.

            Then these two stories converge. The Cult of Jimmy is a satanic cult. So when the group sees Kelson, they believe that he is the devil incarnate. Head Jimmy goes to talk to him, and he finds out that Kelson is not the devil, but he threatens him to pretend to be the devil, and Kelson plays along, until he realizes that one of the Jimmy’s is Spike, and they had met before. So Kelson tries to save Spike.

            The scene where Kelson is pretending to be the Devil will undoubtedly be one of the most memorable of the year. He plays the “Number of the Beast” by Iron Maiden as he dances around in a circle of fire that encompasses his tower of bones. Instead of being orange, he makes himself look whiter with black circles around his eyes, and he acts like he has lost his mind during the song. It was truly an all-out performance that must be seen to be understood. The whole set looked amazing, the song was perfect, and his performance was off the charts.

            One of my main takeaways from this film is to value your life and others’. In the very first scene, when Spike challenges the other guy, the other guy, treats Spike poorly, and he just showboats instead of taking this fight to the death seriously, and Spike kills him. Then in the woods, we meet three people, and two of them tell the guy not to kill the zombie, just to hide and move on, but the guy goes after the zombie anyway, and then he ends up getting the virus.

            Over and over, the Jimmys show that they have no regard for human life either. They are constantly doing atrocious things to people. In one scene, the Jimmys have a group tied up in their barn hanging from their hands, and the Jimmys “took their shirts off” also known as taking the skin off their chests. They did not care about the lives of these people at all.

            This was contrasted with Dr. Kelson, who valued the life of everyone. He took care and respect for everyone’s bodies, and he made the Bone Temple as a monument to remember them. He also took the time to form the relationship with Sampson. Something no one else would do. It was admirable, but it was also a wildly dangerous choice. He also thought it might be best to end Sampson’s life sense he seemed to be in so much pain from the virus, but he wanted consent from Sampson first. In the end, he also risks his life for Spike’s and for the betterment of the group.

            They also did some great stuff with the camera in this. In previous movies, when they were showing an infected, the camera would shake violently to symbolize their running, but the shakiness slowly stopped with Sampson as he became more human again. Sampson’s eyes slowly changed the more times that he was drugged. Initially, they were very bloodshot and red, but as he got more doses, the redness slowly faded away until they were almost normal. Then when Dr. Kelson lit the flames around his pyre of skulls, and they showed the aerial view, and it looked like an eye, which I think was intentional, because the eyes play a key role in identifying the infected.

            In the last movie, an infected has a baby, and Spike delivers the baby to the commune where he grew up, but there was no mention of that in this movie. This left me wondering what was going on with that situation, but they did tease the third movie, which was already announced, so hopefully we will get some answers. Then to get the hype up for the third movie, they ended this movie on a cliff hanger just like the last one, but to increase the excitement, at the end of this one, they showed Cillian Murphy, who starred in the first film of the series, 28 Days Later, but he had not be seen in any of the subsequent movies, so now him and Spike will combine for a story line. Also I am interested to see what comes of the information of potentially healing the infected, but the movie made it seem like Dr. Kelson did not impart this knowledge upon Spike.

            This was a great time at the movies. It has just about everything in it. It had gore so nasty that it grossed me out, which takes a lot, but they also had tender moments. Towards the end, I was choked up. I was surprised at the emotional power the relationship between Kelson and Sampson had on me. I was not expecting it to make me tear up. Overall, the movie was great. It was stressful and propulsive, but it also had moments of levity and made me laugh. I do not know which one I like more, the first one or the second one. They both have super memorable scenes and are definitely worth watching more than once. 4 Stars! I cannot wait for the third one to come out whenever that is!