Bone Tomahawk 2015

 

An intense movie combining two solid genres of film making and viewing, the horror and western movie into one good B like unorthodox thriller. Set in the 1890's in the small western town of Bright Hope where we get involved with a few of the citizens including the sheriff Franklin Hunt who will soon indeed be on a hunt played with grisly relish by Kurt Russell and his worn out deputy played by the always terrific Richard Jenkins. We also come across Patrick Wilson and his wife played by Lili Simmons a doctor of the town who have problems of their own notably a broken leg that Patrick got when he was making repairs to his roof and fell off of it. Crash bam.

There are other loners including a very good Matthew Fox who plays a gunslinger and various nasty types thrown about here and there including the two low life robbers played by Sid Haig and David Arquette who set the mess in motion.

The main action happens one night when the town is attacked by a gang of cave dwellers, a tribe of Indian cannibals known as Troglodytes who kill kidnap and munch. This is no revisionist take on the western, just warning you but it is twisty and tangled. The four leads take off on terrible journey to rescue the 3 kidnapped victims taken by the tribe including Wilson's wife. Amid the vast and beautiful western landscapes these searchers and indeed the viewer are in for a terrible time and no happy ending is in theirs or our future. The stress never lets up.

This is a film I never heard of but I'm always in the market for a good western and so we found each other on Netflix. This is the first movie written and directed by S. Craig Zahler who has a great flair and imagination for the horrible and I can easily recommend this exciting and at times very bloody film to a few brave souls who like their movies spicy and hot. References abound including the Ford masterpiece “The Searchers” and horror fans will no doubt come up with their own list of influences for the movie. Streaming and screaming on Netflix.