20 Horror Films Where Humans Are The Real Monsters

3. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

Nia DaCosta picked up where Danny Boyle left off in 28 Years Later with The Bone Temple, a film that manages to capture pretty much everything great about its predecessor while adding in a big ol’ dose of nastiness.

We find Spike (Alfie Williams) being initiated into Sir Jimmy Crystal’s (Jack O’Connell) gang of Fingers, and reluctantly joining them on their mission to purge the lands and sacrifice humans and infected alike to Old Nick (i.e., Satan). Meanwhile, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) is hanging out in his bone temple, experimenting with morphine and the big infected lad he calls Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry). And these groups colliding is what the whole thing builds towards – with predictably ruinous results.

Of all the films in the series, this is the one that provides the greatest insight into the infected’s experience and, via Dr. Kelson’s experiments, we discover they still have some vestige of humanity deep inside, and are caught in a permanent state of suffering. On the other hand, while the 28 franchise has always done a decent trade in questionable human characters, from malevolent military men to cowardly husbands, the questionable humans of this outing – specifically Jimmy and the Fingers – are beyond redemption. Whether it’s the indiscriminate slaughter, the wilful torture (“removal of the shirt” is a phrase we wish we’d never heard), or the sing-song sadism, the Jimmies are monsters to the core.