To call 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple stylistically unhinged would be a grave understatement. From its lo-fi, iPhone-shot aesthetic to a slew of out-of-left-field audiovisual cues, the legacy sequel to 2002’s 28 Days Later thrives on its anarchic, thrillingly counter-cultural edge. With director Nia DaCosta at the helm of the direct sequel, there’s an air of fear it might lose Danny Boyle’s punk-rock touch. Though nowhere near as scrappy or wild, The Bone Temple instead unfolds as a roaring synthesis of its predecessor’s tonal tug-of-war and a more calculated vision.

Despite being shot on more traditional equipment, DaCosta’s lens is tonally experimental—unashamedly gory, musically charged, yet also graceful. It navigates the social, economic, and religious mores we cling to, while interrogating our destructive obsession with idolatry. The film ultimately manifests as a covert history lesson, sketching mankind as a force more sinister than anything undead or celestial—especially given our penchant for transforming collective systems for good into something far more malicious.

Picking up immediately after the events of the previous film, Alex Garland’s script sees Spike (Alfie Williams) inducted into a gang of blonde wig-wearing, Satan-worshipping killers led by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell), who proclaims himself the son of “Old Nick.” As they roam the English countryside viciously dispatching survivors, the iodine-covered, blowdart-wielding Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) continues building the titular Bone Temple—a memorial to victims of the epidemic—until he forms a curious, world-altering relationship with Samson, an alpha leader of the infected horde. Soon, the two groups find themselves on an unstoppable collision course.

For as dark, dreary, and destructive as The Bone Temple becomes, its fabric remains musical. Hildur Guðnadóttir’s walloping industrial-electronic score gives way to a deft array of needle drops from British icons like Radiohead, Duran Duran, and—most triumphantly—Iron Maiden, in a deeply rousing musical sequence that sees Kelson rock out as his own version of the devil.

It’s one of many enthralling sequences in a tale that, despite its American director, retains an unequivocally English personality, complete with a hysterical National Health Service reference.

Armed with eclectic, lived-in personalities, the key to The Bone Temple’s staying power lies in the one-two punch of Fiennes and O’Connell. As shattering and melancholic as Fiennes is, O’Connell’s foul-mouthed gaslighter proves to be the film’s most absorbing creation, lending it a boldly bleak timbre and drawing viewers toward repeat viewings with his frame-conquering drawl.

For all its outsized personalities and set pieces, The Bone Temple remains a lyrical experience—especially as it navigates Samson’s slow re-entry into human consciousness, crescendoing in a subtly powerful moment of recollection. There’s no greater power or godly solution here. There’s just us—a terrifying treatise from a horror film unafraid to rattle and enthrall the senses.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is in theatres Jan. 16.