There’s so much about what’s gone wrong with Britain in the 28 Years Later films it’s like being mugged by a zombie Guardianista. I half expected a new breed of infected that just wags a finger and shakes its head at the survivors while looking saddened.
Still, at least it’s done entertainingly and not via a “Here’s why that country you inhabit is awful” article in the paper itself. The Bone Temple may be brutal but it’s also funny, and has great music; the best way to get through to us Brits. And it’s hopeful, once you get past the flaying and crucifying, about the future.
State of a nation | Dr Kelson, Medicine Man | It’s all about family | Wanted dead or alive | The future | And finally |
STATE OF A NATION
Lessons from history
Both the 28 Years Later films have forced us to look afresh at our own country and what we risk becoming. Nationalism and isolation, backed up by twisted retellings of history and religion, are used to distract us. The message is that such a mindset leads to stagnation and historical dead ends, to infighting and attacking the wrong target while the real enemy gets off scot-free.
We see Jimmy Crystal creating that distraction with the Jimmys. At the start of the film Jimmy Shite has to fight Spike to the death to retain a place in the group, amid baying and cheering from the others, when both are victims of Jimmy Crystal, who watches the whole thing from a big chair.
The Bone Temple tells us that an outward mindset (Kelson is not afraid of Samson and welcomes him into his home), rationality (he seeks to understand how the virus works) and science (all those scribbled measurements for his drug concoctions) can drag the country out of the mire. The virus really can be treated. What has happened can be resolved and these horrible three decades can still end up a footnote in British history. And it can be done while accepting the truth of the past as Kelson does with his Memento Mori; whatever the dead have done they are all the same under the skin.
And just to check we understand its importance, at the end of The Bone Temple we literally get a history teacher (Jim) explaining what we should have learned from this movie.
Handing over the baton
After meeting Jimmy Crystal, Dr Kelson tells Samson that his work (the Momento Mori) is done. His bone towers soar above his field, and he has discovered how the virus works, which makes it treatable and potentially curable. He knows how to avoid infection (iodine). But he is running out of raw materials (the drugs) and even his memories are slipping away. Kelson has been instrumental in turning things around but his part in all this is coming to an end. Even if he lives he can’t save many people anyway as his morphine is running out, but his “proof of concept” (Sorry Samson!) is the starting point for someone else.
I also think this is how he rationalises, when cosplaying Satan, telling the Jimmys to continue their torturing. He needs them gone, but their time will be coming to an end anyway. Obviously that happens a lot quicker than expected. Spike is the catalyst and once Kelson recognises him behind his mask he knows he has to rescue him, which forces the immediate destruction of Jimmy Crystal and the other Jimmys. Saving Spike isn’t just a personal thing. He’s the next generation and needs to be rescued from Jimmy Crystal’s backward, vicious troupe. Samson and Jimmy Crystal are a warning of what can happen to children; Spike needs to be put back on a path that avoids that outcome.
You gotta have faith (during an apocalypse)
This isn’t really about the death of God though you could argue there’s a sort of twisted creation myth going on with Kelson. Science is triumphing, Samson in his agonising Garden of Eden is saved from his psychological pain and starts to think for himself (and wear clothes!) Kelson might even have created a new species of man – the thoughtful Alpha. And when Kelson sees it is good he gets a whole eternity of rest rather than just Sundays. And then of course it’s all topped off when Jimmy Crystal, who has the same initials as Jesus Christ, is crucified on an inverted cross.
The underlying warning though is about the nature of evil (and our culpability), and the weaponisation of faith to control a flock of believers.
Everyone has been through extreme trauma. Both Samson and Jimmy Crystal are psychotic and do terrible things. Jimmy is stuck in his childhood but wielding violence and sadism like a pro. Who is to blame?
The Jimmys believe Jimmy Crystal’s lies about Old Nick being his dad. Cultlike faith has filled the gap left by science and progress. It’s not surprising as it offers solidity, constancy, and – that aspect of the before times that Kelson himself said he could remember – certainty.
Jimmy Crystal’s lock on his followers starts to weaken when the barn fire reduces their numbers. It takes Kelson’s pyrotechnics and old-tech magic to pull them back from this doubt though it’s shortlived. The spell has been broken.
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DR KELSON, MEDICINE MAN
He’s got the music in him
Great music but there was one thing missing from the movie: Wild Boys was right there, guys!
Maybe Duran Duran were one of Kelson’s favourite bands, or maybe he picked up the vinyl on his scavenging trips and there’s a corelation between morphine users and New Romantics. I must say, as someone born in the North East who spent half the 1980s as a Duranie, I was surprised Kelson was so into them. In their heyday in the UK, unlike in America, they were very much a girls band.
Then again – and here’s some Duran Duran lore for you – Dr Kelson is from Whitley Bay. And Andy Taylor, the band’s lead guitarist and a Tynemouth native, actually opened his own wine bar called Rio in… Whitley Bay. I like to think Kelson may have popped in now and again for a Bacardi and coke after a long day at the GP surgery.
As for Kelson’s extraordinary Iron Maiden performance, when he is literally singing for his life, it’s not surprising it had such an effect on the Jimmys, some of whom won’t have heard music played, and certainly not that loudly. Especially as mere speech brings the infected running (and drooling).
And thank god Kelson knew all the words to lip-sync to The Number of The Beast. Imagine if all he’d had in his vinyl store was Riverboat Song by Ocean Colour Scene. It would all have been going so well until he got to that really fast bit where everyone singing along just goes “bltrlbkrlrobrejkbjerr”.
Dr Kelson’s medicine cabinet
Kelson tells Samson he has been scavenging drugs from a 70 mile radius, morphine and the orange iodine he coats himself in to protect himself from the virus. Assuming it is iodine. Geographically we’re near Newcastle which means it’s considerably more likely that the orange stuff he’s found in people’s bathroom cabinets is fake tan. Maybe the virus is destroyed by the smell of biscuits?
He’s probably also picked up a shed load of Calpol too – he should try that on the infected kids, that gloop is so effective in five minutes it’d be like a Northumberland Lord of The Flies.
Kelson’s cures
We don’t know if Samson is cured as such, whether he will always need drugs or if that mega dose has flipped a switch in his brain and the virus will now be in retreat. Kelson is meticulous, making copious notes on the way to coming up with his treatment for the infection, notes that are now safe in his bunker. Though if your average doctor’s handwriting is anything to go by, for anyone retrieving it it’s going to be like finding the Rosetta Stone all over again.
Does Kelson also temporarily “cure” Jimmy Chrystal? Kelson knows Jimmy is mentally ill. He blows drugs into the Jimmys’ faces as part of his big show, drugs that have cured Samson. Once Jimmy Crystal is hanging upside down on the cross he is devastated that he can no longer hear Satan’s voice in his head, and asks (as he had done in the church years before) “Father why have you forsaken me?”
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IT’S ALL ABOUT FAMILY
The Jimmys
Jimmy Crystal and The Fingers sounds like a late-60s psychedelic pop band that had one hit then took so many drugs they spent the next 30 years believing they were stuck in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. (Wait what.)
The Jimmys are brutal and sadistic, but what stands out is that these men and women are much younger than Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, who must be in his late 30s now. Over the years there will have been regular replacements of Jimmys, a stream of orphaned children and young adults churning through the ultra violent sect. Their accents hail from across Britain, so either Jimmy Crystal has picked them up on his wanderings or they have made long dangerous journeys alone.
They have found a family but it’s one where they could be called on to fight for their spot at any point. There is no safety. But as Jimmy Ink tells Spike, she has seen outside the group and it’s even worse than within it.
Childhood
It’s important to note that the root of the psychosis that both Samson and Jimmy Crystal suffer from is rooted in their childhoods; infection for Samson and abandonment at the start of the infection for Jimmy. Kelson is adamant Spike will not go the same way.
The Jimmys can only take what Jimmy Crystal says on trust as everything about him predates their births: Jimmy Savile, The Teletubbies. Trauma has warped him but those childhood memories are the key to who he is, right down to his clothing and jewellery (you can see this if you rewatch the beginning of 28 Years Later). Though he grows up to be a psychotic sadist he is mentally stuck in childhood, which was the last time anyone cared for him. I wonder if he even realises the real world consequences of his actions, or if it feels like he’s in a cartoon, or a horror movie an indulgent babysitter has let him stay up and watch.
Fathers and sons
Fathers, alive and dead, real and imaginary, have been a bit of a let down in the last two films, and Kelson acts as a temporary surrogate dad for both types. Spike and Jimmy have both been forced to come of age too soon. Spike had his more formalised trip to the mainland with his dad but he was very young for it and later found out about Jamie’s betrayal (his affair with Rosey the schoolteacher while Isla was dying, and seemingly not bothering to find medical help for Isla).
Poor Jimmy was forced to face up to his dad’s abandonment even earlier, as instead of trying to escape with his son he welcomed the infected as the biblical end times. Jimmy’s abandonment tops and tails the 28 Years Later films as, hanging upside down on the cross, he believes himself to have been abandoned by his imaginary dad too. He can no longer hear that voice in his head, which must be a terrifying blow after all he did to try and please him.
Kelson also gives Samson a name and a literal voice. When Kelson dies, Samson in turn cares for him as a son would, honouring him and his body as Kelson honoured all the dead.
Motherhood
As I said in my review, motherhood isn’t seen as this sanctified role. The women are imperfect and may have done terrible things, even as they seek to protect others.
Jimmy Ink has a long history with the sadistic Jimmys but takes on a protective role with Spike. Cathy the pregnant forager is doing whatever she can to protect her unborn child.
And while we only see Jimmy Crystal’s mother in the previous film, she has an important role; he cries out for her as his brain clears while he is on the cross. On my 28 Years Later re-watch it was striking how even as she was attacked, and actually becoming infected, she was still screaming at young Jimmy to run, her maternal instinct overwhelming even the virus for those moments. Considering that baby Isla in 28 Years Later is evidence the placenta can protect the unborn child of an infected, motherhood seems to be a bulwark against the infection.
Spike
I can’t write this without thinking about the incredibly heavy burden Spike is carrying when he and the Jimmys visit Kelson, aka Old Nick. He’s scared for Kelson, and what Jimmy Crystal is capable of. He will also feel he’s let the doctor down by joining Jimmy’s gang, and will feel ashamed of what he has already been part of. His feelings for his mother will be feeding into his emotions at the Bone Temple. Her skull sits at the top facing the morning sun – this is the last place he saw her and was held by her.
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WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE
Jimmy’s dead!
I suppose he could come back as a satanic infected Alpha, setting up a conflict with the now-benign Samson. But I think (hope?) Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal is dead. We had our first sight of him and his work when Spike and his dad found an infected man hanging upside down with JIMMY carved into his torso in that tumbledown cottage in 28 Years Later. In that scene, Spike’s was too scared to do anything so his protector (Jamie) killed the infected when it wriggled free. Now we have our last sight of him, also hanging upside down, crucified by Spike’s new protector, Kelly, though this time Spike has stepped up, stabbing and incapacitating Jimmy Crystal first.
Jim’s alive! No, the other one!
Right at the end we meet Jim the bicycle courier. He’s still alive and living in the same cottage he and Selena and Hannah had retreated to in the first film. Yes! That bit when they were happily awaiting rescue with their big banner and the Infected were starving to death all around them (and if that doesn’t sound like modern Britain – snatching defeat from the jaws of victory – I don’t know what does).
He has a teenage daughter now, called Sam. The two see Spike and Kelly being chased down a hill by a group of infected and rush to help with their gun. I just hope poor Spike doesn’t find it too triggering when Jim introduces himself as, well, Jim.
And the most important question… will Spike survive?
Of course he will, I refuse to countenance any other option. The next instalment is 28 years Later 3, not Alien 3 (just no one mention anything to David Fincher).
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THE FUTURE
The next film is apparently about redemption, an idea that flows naturally from what we have witnessed so far. So many of the characters in the last two films have parallel experiences, their outcomes determined by good or bad luck but also good or bad choices (and in the cases of the children those choices often made by people meant to be protecting them).
Three decades in and survivors have done a lot of terrible things to survive. We don’t know what Jim the bicycle courier has been up to in the intervening years, but I bet he’s had to do worse than teach history and keep chickens.
Being entirely selfish I world also like to see other survivor communities. How many people are still alive? Are these groups in contact with each other or are they too wary? Has there been any rebuilding on a larger scale than Lindisfarne? Has anyone escaped quarantine? What happens if you take a boat out – are you allowed to fish or do the NATO patrols just shoot you? Have any of our islands (we have thousands including several tidal islands) been evacuated? Is the rest of the world still paying attention – have they already found a cure but decided the UK is of more value as a petri dish for a watch-and-wait experiment?
Outside of that world-building, I really want Samson to be reunited with baby Isla, hopefully without tearing the Holy Island community apart.
And what of pregnant Cathy? She knows sign language. She can identify an edible mushroom. She will happily leave you behind if you’re in trouble and won’t take you with her even if you’re a child of 12. She’s tough as old boots, a true survivor and I really hope she’s back in a future film.
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AND FINALLY…
By James!
I wrote a short piece about Jim, Jamie and the Jimmys when the last film came out, about what all these Jameses might mean, if they meant anything. After The Bone Temple it is obvious that the repetition of variations of the name James are entirely deliberate. There are so many parallels between characters, whose lives and moralities have diverged because of their circumstances, often through no fault of their own (initially anyway); the James variants just further highlight this (and link into Kelson’s belief that we are all the same under the skin whatever we have done).
By the way there are some interesting meanings to the names James and Jacob (they are variants of the same name): assailant, or substitute, are both perfect for the Jimmys.
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