An atheist and a Satanist walks into a bone temple in Nia DaCosta's sequel to Alex Garland and Danny Boyle's excellent '28 Years Later.' Plus, this week's horror recommendations.
You are reading the twenty-fifth edition of Field Notes From Hell, a weekly horror column from Deep Cuts.
Each week, I send out an email with three-pack horror film recs, along with a hand-picked curation of news clips and upcoming horror releases. I recommend three horror films: one recently released, one classic horror, and one that I feel is unjustly overlooked. I send these emails — or I try to, anyway — every Sunday.
This week’s featured horror rec is Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, an excellent follow-up to Danny Boyle’s already-supreme film.
REMEMBER, YOU MUST DIE. Memento mori. That has been the good doctor’s advice in last year’s 28 Years Later, a uniquely ruminative horror film about reconciling with one’s mortality. “There are many different kinds of death,” Dr. Kelson says. “Some are better than others.” In The Bone Temple, we see this explored in greater, rather indulgent ways as the film revisits the doctor’s eponymous ossuary.
I’ve heard somewhere that “true love is to love that which is unlovable,” and maybe Dr. Kelson will agree. Played with exacting grace and compassion by Ralph Fiennes, his character is arguably what makes both 28 Years and this film work. His biggest act of kindness is the temple, a loving archive of lives fully lived. It is where he rendezvouses with an infected “alpha” named Samson, who — thanks to the doctor’s morphine concoction — momentarily unseizes from the infection’s blinding rage.
Dr. Kelson is the mirrored opposite of Jimmy (Jack O’Connell), a deluded and self-mythologizing Satanist who ritualistically murders strangers and factions across the mainland. He claims to be able to commune with a demon named Old Nick, an ability he holds above his Fingers, a ragtag pack of young children seemingly wired to obey his every whim.
There’s a nauseating sequence wherein Jimmy and his Fingers enact a gruesome ritual they obnoxiously call “charity.” It’s absolutely horrid, but a necessary extreme that builds on the previous film’s themes. What happens when decades of trauma and isolation were left unchecked? What new breeds of monsters will expel their vicious wrath? Though perhaps, inevitably, what will healing look like?
ABOUT THE FILM
☠️ 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple | 2026 dir. Nia DaCosta | Horror, Thriller, Drama | 🇬🇧
Dr. Kelson finds himself in a shocking new relationship - with consequences that could change the world as they know it - and Spike’s encounter with Jimmy Crystal becomes a nightmare he can’t escape.
Horror recs this week
Every FIELD NOTES FROM HELL dispatch includes a three-pack of horror recs: 1.) a featured horror rec we share at the top of the newsletter, 2.) a horror classic, and 3.) an overlooked or underrated horror.
🎞️ Classic Horror: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982, dir. John Carpenter)
Long before its overdue reappraisal, I have been a staunch defender of Halloween III, or as franchise purists like to call it, Season of the Witch, a sad attempt at othering this Michael Myers-free sequel from its own franchise. I think it’s apt to view it as a horror classic now, in that the three masks has reached peak status not just with horror fans as rabid as this writer. It does stick out, but for good reason. The vibe feels positively sci-fi radio-drama, following an evil Irish corporation who aims to literally melt children’s brains down.
👀 Overlooked Horror: Hostel: Part II (2007, dir. Eli Roth)
To my knowledge, no other filmmaker has immediately made a gender-swap sequel of their own film than Eli Roth with Hostel: Part II. Yes, this is a straight-up rec, and I’m prepared to bear the brunt of your most glaring side-eye. Roth made a very solid sequel, which is to say, in the context of a post-Weinstein, post-Epstein world, is very topical. To argue, however, that this is a wholly feminist piece has always been absurd to me. But a sickening, anti-neoliberal capitalist PSA, sure.
What’s new in horror
In addition to weekly horror recs, I’m also curating notable horror headlines and sharing them here in quick, TL;DR bullet lists so you can get (mostly) up-to-date with your horror news.
Plus, I’m calling attention to any upcoming horror film and TV releases both in theaters and streaming platforms. Here’s what’s new in horror this week.
🩸 If It Bleeds…: Weekly horror news roundup
Mike Flanagan’s reboot of Carrie is set to release in October this year — The Direct
Daniel Kaluuya joins the cast of the new sci-fi film, Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel, directed by Michael Shanks (Together) — Deadline
John Waters joins Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Angela Bassett, Evan Peters and the rest of the cast of the thirteenth season of American Horror Story —Baltimore Fishbowl
New trailers this week:
Samara Weaving and Jason Siegel star in a wickedly funny serial killer horror-com called Over Your Dead Body. Watch the full trailer.
Slantedis a new film pegged as a mix between The Substance and Mean Girls. Watch the trailer!
Lee Cronin’s The Mummyhas you witness the unraveling in a new few-seconds’ long teaser.
🎟️ Marquee of the Macabre: Upcoming horror films & TV
🔪 Scream 7is coming out in theaters this Friday, February 27th
💉 FX’s The Beauty is ramping up. The show has got a few more episodes left before the finale.
🐡 Markiplier’s Iron Lungis getting good reviews and is currently in theaters
That’s it for this week’s digest! Thank you so much for reading through.
ABOUT FIELD NOTES FROM HELL
FIELD NOTES FROM HELL is Deep Cuts’ weekly email digest. Dispatches go out every Sunday, with handpicked capsule reviews, news updates, and horror recommendations.
