In the 28 Days franchise, much of the world is laid to waste by an accidentally-released pathogen called the Rage Virus, which reduces human beings to almost mindless biting and eating machines. The third installment is set 28 years after the original movie and takes place in a radically re-wilded England. Nature has largely reclaimed towns and villages and enormous herds of deer run freely through the forests and open country.
12 year old Spike and his parents live in a thriving and comparatively safe island village, protected from the worst of the new reality by a heavily-guarded causeway that is covered by the sea for most of each day and night. However, Spike’s mother, Isla, is suffering from a serious and unknown ailment, and so Spike breaks the Island’s rules and takes her to the mainland in search of the semi-legendary “Dr. Kelson”. The Islanders believe Kelson to be dangerously insane, but Spike understands that the doctor’s medical training offers at least a chance of a cure for his mother. Along the way, they rescue and begin to care for a newborn baby girl.
In this scene, Dr. Kelson leads Spike, Isla and their infant charge into his Ossuary – a spiraling, towering hillside memorial to the uncountable lives lost due to the Rage pandemic. Far from being insane, Kelson is revealed as a man of poetic moral conviction, ingenuity and will, who has made the Ossuary a major part of his life’s work. Note that 28 Years Later is – at least mostly – a horror movie, and the following clip does not shy away from the details of how Kelson prepares the decapitated head of a young soldier named Erik for installment as a skull.
Meanwhile, Isla explores the Ossuary site, including a large table shrine and workbench that is clearly inspired by vanitas artwork.
Later in the story, Kelson deduces that Isla is suffering from an incurable cancer and does not have long to live. The emotional weight then shifts, as both Kelson and Isla realize that there is only one humane path forward, and that Spike must quickly be prepared for it: