‘28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ Releases Chilling New Art Posters
Horror fans the world over are waiting feverishly for the release of “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” the fourth installment in a 24-year-old zombie-virus saga that has grown from a self-contained tale of an apocalyptic epidemic to a whole alternate timeline of British history. Whether you loved, hated, or reservedly admired “28 Years Later” – the post-apocalyptic, neo-medievalist, coming-of-age borderline arthouse flick that revived the series last year – you had to admit that it was nothing if not idiosyncratic, and its conclusion practically demanded a follow-up.
Said follow-up opens wide today in the United Kingdom; its American release comes Friday. With these dates so very near, the marketing for “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” has released an array of promotional posters designed to leave would-be audiences even more tantalized, if that’s possible.
The First Poster – Jimmy Crystal Is Back
Like last year’s “28 Years Later,” the posters for “The Bone Temple” possess an aesthetic that is consistently macabre, beguiling, and ostentatiously artistic. The first, which appeared on Bloody Disgusting on January 9, shows the indelible face of Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), a survivor who leads a cult of Infected-killing hotshots who have taken aesthetic inspiration from the late British media personality/monstrously prolific sex predator Jimmy Savile.
This scene-stealing messiah may mean well (he can’t know about the crimes of his inspiration, since these weren’t exposed in our world until a decade after the in-universe Rage outbreak), but he couldn’t erase the unhinged quality of his appearance if he tried – and it’s hard to say that he’s trying. With his hands raised to either side of his unsettling rictus, the poster artfully gives the impression that the five silhouetted figures near the bottom of the image are facing him, and that their facelessness is a mark not of the Rage virus, but of how he is holding them in thrall with his mad charisma.
Artful But Familiar
The rest of the “Bone Temple” posters, which appeared on Bloody Disgusting on January 12, contain imagery that will be equally recognizable to anybody who saw last year’s “28 Years Later.” There’s a portrait of the post-apocalyptic English countryside (with a murder of crows flying overhead) that, very much in the spirit of this franchise, somehow manages to look bleak and bucolic at the same time. There’s an image straight from a scene in the previous film: an “Alpha” who’s been shot full of arrows. There’s a close-up of an Infected eye, and of the face of Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes).
And, of course, no promotional poster series for “The Bone Temple” would be complete without a portrait of the place that gives the sequel its name: the forest of statues that Dr. Kelson made out of human bones to honor the deceased, and before which several bald, pale humans stand with heads bowed, looking like the cult followers in “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
All of these posters are visually inventive in their own way, especially the wilderness tableau, which is in the shape of a disconsolate-looking human head. Painted into the dark body of the Alpha are the faces of other Infected; it’s as if this hulking figure looms over the entire hellscape of his world, like the lord of its ravagers. The bone temple and Dr. Kelson posters cleverly incorporate the franchise’s signature biohazard symbol (it looks as if it’s been painted onto Kelson’s reddened face), and the Infected eye is hauntingly detailed while also reflecting an image of what it’s looking at.
Let’s Just See the Movie
Truth be told, none of these posters really does much to advertise “The Bone Temple” in its own right. All of these portraits reference imagery and plot points from the previous film. Undoubtedly, many or all of these elements and characters will reappear in “The Bone Temple,” so these works of art are an effective way to promote the upcoming sequel without spoiling any fresh aspects of the story or lore. Then again, the sight of numerous humans (Infected or otherwise) entering the bone temple is new and very intriguing. We have wonderfully little time to wait to find out how the movie itself will pay this off.
