HORROR MOVIE REVIEW: BONE TOMAHAWK

31/5/5

A small frontier town in the old west has been invaded by the tribe of crazy cannibals. They kidnap a deputy and a medical woman - Samantha O'Dyer. A rescue expedition includes Samantha's husband Arthur, sherif Hunt (Kurt Russell), and few others. They embark on a journey through the wilderness, only to find out that they bit more than they could chew. Their trip is even more complicated because of Arthur's broken leg - an injury he sustained before his wife's kidnapping. The men come face to face with the true terror, that my be the real representation of the land they came to possess. Stripped of the remains of what defined them as civilised men, they are now locked in the battle for survival.

The first adjective that comes to mind when describing this directorial debut by Steven Craig Zahler is "long". The film's running time (over two hours) is the movie's biggest flaw. 30  minutes or so could be easily edited out, however the lengthy dialogues between men about life and death add some additional meaning to the finale.

The film works well in character department. The four men are properly fleshed out, each with his own backstory and motives. They are not friends, but united by the spirit of comradery, and are surprisingly blind to the suicidal nature of their mission.

The violence in the film is random, but effective. Music score is a bare minimum. Deaths come in a sudden and brutal fashion. The kills are rare but effective. The final showdown is not very cinematic, but presented, however, in a very intense and realistic way. There is very little explained about the villains of the story, but their obscure origins is what make them scary.

BONE TOMAHAWK would have been a disaster if not for is well built protagonists. It is also painfully long, but those who last the ran will not regret it.



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