By Ian Brockway

From Nia DaCosta, (Hedda) “The Bone Temple” is the latest installment of the 28 Days Later franchise started by director Danny Boyle and Cillian Murphy. Though the film treads familiar ground, it is made compelling by its apprehension and the pure verve of its characters.[Showtimes and trailer at Tropiccinema.com]

Here in the Apocalypse, young Spike (Alfie Williams) has managed to survive under the clutches of the satanist head Jimmy Crystal, (Jack O’ Connor), based after real life announcer and sex offender Jimmy Saville. Jimmy demands absolute authoritarian control involving maiming and killing.

Meanwhile Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) is underground maintaining his bone ossuary and keeping watch over a half catatonic strongman (Chi Lewis-Parry).

Jimmy is certain that Dr. Ian is Satan himself, Jimmy’s father and Spike is doing all he can to escape to some kind of freedom.

We know the teeth-gnashing terrain, and a few of the episodes are akin to a kind of Texas Chainsaw Millennial Massacre, Ragu, and tomato pulp aplenty. It is the relish in the acting of O’Connor and Fiennes that hold it all together: one is a bleach-blond megalomaniac, the other an iodine-soaked bullet-headed, melancholic man haunted by the macabre poetry of life circumstances. The film takes its time and contains poignance and suspense, notwithstanding the unnecessary overloud percussions that signal a zombie approach.

There is great sadness in the person of Dr Ian, living in solitude, shadowy and underground, left with archaic moldy textbooks and 80s pop music on a windup turntable.

Dr. Ian’s Satanic dance outdoes Bruce Dickinson’s Iron Maiden or the great Ozzy Osbourne hands down, a singularly wondrous scene in the film and a moment of devilishly daring performance art — sensational yet saturnine.

There is something mysterious and opaque in Dr. Ian, a man gone weird. A formidable man all but ridden through with soft-spoken spooks.

Who knew that the neon pop music of Duran Duran could soothe a Doom-lidded doctor of archaic prescriptions and allow him to dream?

Write Ian at ianfree1@icloud.com

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]