Bone Tomahawk

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

87% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 31 reviews)

Runtime: 132 minutes (not a misprint)

Directed by: S. Craig Zahler

Starring: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox, Lili Simmons

From: Several different independent companies

This movie just came out today and I saw it already, albeit via an Amazon rental rather than seeing it theatrically; it opened only in like a dozen different cities, none of them in Florida so that was what I had to do instead. My Letterboxd review is below:

It's rare I watch something on VOD the same day that it starts in limited release at only a few theatre screens across the country, but then again this is a film I've heard a lot about this year due to various messageboards and Twitter accounts I follow that'd be interested in such things as a horror Western starring Kurt Russell (no relation... unfortunately) and having a nice cast of familiar faces from Richard Jenkins, Patrick Wilson, a lovely lady in Lili Simmons, Matthew Fox, and genre people like Sid Haig, David Arquette, Michael Pare, Sean Young and even James Tolkan. While after watching this I know that some of those actors only appear in the film briefly, it's still a nice cast.

The plot: a pair of people are kidnapped and a wacky quartet of the sheriff (Russell), a nicely dressed gunslinger (Fox), the husband (Wilson) of the woman that's kidnapped and he happens to have a broken leg, and an old assistant deputy (Jenkins) who means well but at times comes off as being a bit “slow”. Did I mention that the people who did the kidnapping were strange cannibalistic freaks who were described as Troglodytes? It's sort of like The Searchers, although in that film John Wayne never had to battle cannibals.

So yeah the movie is already odd, and then you take into account that this is 132 minutes long... it is definitely more a Western than a horror film, although when there are graphic moments, they are indeed pretty graphic and what I thought was nice was that it was all practical effects rather than CGI. The runtime means that this has a leisurely pace, but I am alright with that. You do get to know the quartet and they're all interesting characters and watching them interact with each other was enjoyable. The fact that they're all talented actors does help also. There are some odd moments that don't always work-it has to be noted that there is comedy sprinkled throughout-but otherwise I was engrossed with this.

As this just came out today I don't want to say too much else lest I give away any potential spoilers. I'll just say that it gets pretty ridiculous at times; even with that, I did enjoy this nicely shot tale that takes a different look at the Western... and also allows Russell to sport some tremendous facial hair.