28 Years Later: The Bone Temple list of deaths — including whether Ralph Fiennes' Dr. Kelson makes it out

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple came out in January 2026, directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Alex Garland. It's the direct sequel to Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later. Young Spike (Alfie Williams) falls in with "Sir Lord" Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell) and his gang, the Fingers, who all call themselves Jimmy. Dr. Ian Kelson (Fiennes) keeps building his ossuary of skulls and bones, and starts treating Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), the giant Alpha infected, with morphine.

Two storylines, one temple at the end of both. Fiennes described the collision simply: "It's good and evil, isn't it?"

Who dies on the way to the temple

The Fingers start killing almost immediately, and they don't spare their own.

• Jimmy Shite — Spike has to fight him to the death to join the gang. Spike stabs him in the thigh, hits an artery, and nobody helps him.
• The mushroom forager — an older man out foraging with a pregnant woman attacks an infected, draws the pack and turns.
• Three farm captives — the Fingers raid Tom and Cathy's farm and skin the first three of their four prisoners alive. Jimmy Crystal calls it "charity."
• Jimmima (Emma Laird) — she pins Tom down, and Cathy kills her with a meat hook to the back of the head.
• An unnamed Jimmy — Tom sets him on fire with a gas canister.
• Tom (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) — killed as the barn burns.
• A hunter — Samson kills him in the woods, gouging his eyes and tearing out his head and spine.

Cathy (Mirren Mack) escapes. Spike finds her, can't kill her, and tells the Jimmys he did.

Who dies at the Bone Temple

Spike's place in the gang doesn't last. Jimmy Fox (Sam Locke) captures him to avenge Jimmy Shite, and Jimmy Ink, real name Kellie (Erin Kellyman), kills Fox to stop him.

Then Kelson gets his audience. Jimmy Crystal believes Kelson is Old Nick himself, so Kelson plays the part: a pyrotechnic performance at the temple to Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast."

"It's so crazy," DaCosta told CinemaBlend of the sequence.

She was nervous about it: "If I pull this off then it'll be epic." Iron Maiden were pleased too. "We don't let many people use our music," the band said, and made an exception.

Does Dr. Kelson make it out?

No. Kelson finds out Spike is among the Fingers and uses his last commandment as Satan to save him: Jimmy Crystal must be crucified.

Crystal stabs Kelson to prove he isn't the devil, and the wound is fatal. Spike stabs Crystal in the side. Kellie turns on the gang, kills the remaining Jimmys who defend their leader, and crucifies Crystal upside down, on an inverted cross, the symbol he has worn since he was a boy. Crystal dies there.

Kelson's treatment is what brings Samson back to him. Earlier in the film, just before Kelson planned to put him to sleep for good, Samson said "moon," the first time an infected has spoken in the series, and woke with a clear head.

"He's not fully cured, and the level that he is healed is permanent," DaCosta told LADbible.

Samson reaches Kelson in time for his last words, "memento mori," remember that you must die, the idea his whole temple of bones is built on. Then Samson carries Kelson's body away.

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Fiennes never played him as the dark one. "Kelson's a good man. He's a doctor. There's no twist in his psyche," he told GamesRadar+.

Who survives

The survivors at the end of The Bone Temple:

• Spike and Kellie, who leave the temple together
• Samson, partly cured
• Cathy, who escaped the farm
• Jim (Cillian Murphy) and his daughter Sam (Maiya Eastmond), who spot Spike and Kellie being chased by infected and go out to help

Jim is the bridge to the next film. Boyle is directing it from a Garland script, and in May 2026 he said filming had slipped to the following year.

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