A Review of "Bone Tomahawk"

"Is that what I think it is?" "Yessir! I see the set of Lost!"

Yikes! I'm taking a detour. Every once in a while, a movie comes along that shakes me up and, due to its content, becomes either a movie I instantly detest or I instantly adore. The first time I saw Jeepers Creepers when I was real young, it scared me so much I instantly became obsessed with it and would watch it again anytime it was on TV. Similarly enough, this past weekend I was introduced to a movie called Bone Tomahawk, from 2015. If you haven't heard of this movie, you'd better check it out because it was pretty wild. Bone Tomahawk is a Western horror film written and directed by S. Craig Zahler, and it sports an all-star cast featuring Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Richard Jenkins, David Arquette, and even Sid Haig in a brief role. The movie tells the story of a posse that sets out to rescue three kidnapped people from clan of vicious, cannibalistic troglodytes. So let's get rolling on what made this memorable. This is Bone Tomahawk: A movie that teaches us that if you think Saw is the most brutal thing you've ever seen, it's about time you put on your big boy pants.

The Scream/Devil's Rejects crossover looks pretty dope.

So the movie literally starts off showing two drifters, Purvis (David Arquette) and Buddy (Sid Haig), making a living robbing and killing travelers. Not even two minutes in and we're shown David Arquette practicing for his future role in Scream 5 by literally slicing a guy's neck. The camera even stays on this shot for a good ten seconds, watching David scissor-saw a guy's neck the whole time. It's wacky and it sure does sock you in the face to get you hooked. Their robbery doesn't last long when, spooked by the sound of approaching horses, they hide in the hills and encounter a Native American burial site. The movie remains nearly silent as Buddy is killed by an seldom seen brutal savage from the mountains as Purvis escapes.

Eleven days later, Purvis arrives in the small town of Bright Hope and buries his loot. Chicory (Richard Jenkins), backup deputy, notices him and reports to Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell). At the town's saloon, Hunt confronts Purvis. When asked his name, Purvis gives an alias, then tries to escape, only to be shot in the leg by Sheriff Hunt. Hunt sends John Brooder (Lost's Matthew Fox) to fetch the town's doctor. Meanwhile, foreman Arthur O'Dwyer (Patrick Wilson) rests at home with a broken leg, tended by his wife Samantha (Lili Simmons), the doctor's assistant. They literally bone in the first few minutes they're on screen, and when you look up the age of the two actors being twenty years apart, it makes it both awkwardly quirky as well as lovingly weird. As the doctor is drunk, Brooder calls on Samantha and escorts her to the jail to treat Purvis. Leaving Samantha with Purvis and his deputy Nick (Evan Jonigkeit), Hunt and the others return home. That night, at a stable house, a stable boy is murdered brutally by a unseen group of men.

"Mr. Russell! Can I have your autograph?"
*POW*

The murder is reported to Hunt, who investigates and finds the horses missing and the stable boy gutted, his entrails all over the stable floor. He goes to the jail and find it empty, with an arrow left behind. Hunt informs Arthur of the news. A local Native American man called "the professor" (Zahn McClarnon) examines the arrow and links it to a troglodyte clan. He warns Hunt that they are a group of cannibalistic savages who inhabit the "Valley of the Starving Men". Certain that Samantha, Nick, and Purvis had been captured by them, Hunt prepares to go after the clan along with Chicory and Brooder. Arthur, despite his broken leg, insists on accompanying them to find his wife. The movie then kind of slows down as Hunt explains they are "riding a five day ride in three days", and we're shown every step of the way. Sometimes to entertaining ends, sometimes not. Days into their ride, two Mexican strangers stumble across their camp. Fearing they are scouts for a raid, Brooder kills them instantly. They set up a cold camp at another spot. However, during the night, a group of raiders ambushes them, injures Brooder's horse and steals the rest. Brooder regretfully puts down his horse. The next day a fight breaks out between Brooder and Arthur, snapping Arthur's barley healed broken leg again and worsening its condition. In a tense scene, Chicory feeds him an opium truncate and uses a hammer to set the bone back in place. The group leaves him to recover and continue.

"Hey, wait; there's no Snake Plissken tattoo here..."

The movie picks up and escalates when Hunt, Chicory and Brooder arrive at the valley. The three men are injured by a volley of arrows. After killing two of the troglodyte attackers, Hunt and Chicory retreat, leaving Brooder, who is seriously injured and demands to be left behind. Brooder kills one attacker before being killed himself. The attackers capture Hunt and Chicory and imprison them in their cave. The men find Samantha, and an injured Nick, imprisoned in a nearby cage. They inform Hunt that the tribesmen have already killed and eaten Purvis. Then... a scene takes place that I still can't even describe just how brutally awesome it is to behold, and it was downright shocking to watch the first time I've seen. The clan returns to where they are being kept and drag Nick from his and Samantha's cell. Hunt pleads with Nick to wake up as he watches Nick be stripped naked. The clan holds Nick in place, allowing Nick to explain to Hunt that Purvis was a man who killed people and desecrated the savage clan's burial ground, and that he deserved to die. Hunt thanks him for telling him, but then it aaaaall falls apart. Grab your barf bag, ladies and gentlemen. You'll feel different after watching this next bit, believe me. Why? Well, after Nick explains this, the savages then brutally scalp Nick, shove his sliced-off scalp into his throat. That not enough? They then use a chiseled bone spike and hammer the scalp deep into Nick's throat, and yes... you hear all the noises and muffled screams from Nick... and if fucking that wasn't enough... I swear to God... they hold him up upside down by his ankles and the leader horrifically bisects Nick. If you don't know what bisection is, the cannibals literally use a tomahawk made from bone ("Bone Tomahawk" anyone?) and hack Nick right down the middle from in between his legs, and then they split him open and his innards fall out. It was absolutely brutal to watch but I'd be lying if I didn't cheer and salute the barbarous special effects.

"Oh so that's how autotune works."

So after you've survived that madness, an escape plan begins to form. Samantha estimates the number of hostile cannibals to be around twelve (reduced to nine earlier by Hunt's posse). Hunt realizes he has some opium tincture left over he confiscated from Arthur earlier to prevent him from overusing it. They trick several tribesmen into drinking it, however only one overdoses and dies while another becomes unconscious. Meanwhile, Arthur wakes up, limps along the men's trail and discovers the valley. He kills two tribesmen and notices an object embedded in their windpipes. After cutting one out... which I swear to God lasts way too long, like sixty seconds of him just slicing a bony object out of one of the troglodytes' throats. He realizes that it acts as a whistle. He blows on it, luring another tribesman close, then kills him. So far, Patrick Wilson (Arthur) has been the savior, executing these barbarians one after another. I was cheering like a motherfucker for him. In the cave, realizing two of their men were poisoned, the cannibalistic leader grows angry. He and another tribesman pull Hunt from his cell, cut open his abdomen... which he doesn't react to, surprisingly enough... and shove the opium flask (heated by the fire) into the wound, and shoots him in the arm and abdomen with a rifle. Arthur arrives and kills one of the tribesmen, while Hunt decapitates the leader with one of the tribe's bone tomahawks. Yet another brutal yet classic scene. Arthur frees Samantha and Chicory, while a mortally wounded Hunt stays behind with a rifle. He promises to kill the surviving cannibals when they return, to prevent them from terrorizing Bright Hope. As the three leave the cave, they see two pregnant women for the clan... only all of their limbs have been amputated and they have wooden stakes shoved into their eyes, blinding them. Clearly and mercilessly used as mere birthing vessels for the tribe of savages, nothing more. I shuddered at the brutality thinking about what these savages do to people and one another.

"Do you happen to know where I might take
a shower and get my hands on some laxatives?
Humans are messy to both chop up and eat."

On their journey out, Arthur blows the tribesman's whistle, and with no response, they continue to exit. At a distance from the cave, they hear three gunshots, implying that Sheriff Hunt had killed the remaining men of the tribe. Chicory acknowledges the gunshots with a half-hearted smile and tosses aside the rock he had been carrying as a weapon. Tired, hurt, and with few supplies, the three begin the journey home....

Upon hearing that I was going to be watching Bone Tomahawk, I didn't know what to expect. I thought the movie was going to just simply be like a lot of Westerns; a tale of redemption or revenge. Instead, I come to find out halfway through the movie that I was actually watching a horror movie. There are scenes that are perfectly paced, "quick time chaos moments" (Such as the infamous bisection scene), but then there are scenes that feel like they drag. The pacing of this movie is all over the place. Scenes during the journey where the men are talking and sleeping build suspense, sure, but sometimes it feels like the payoffs aren't quite worth the build-ups with how fast everything breaks down. I did like that this movie didn't rely on jump scares, there seldom were few... if any. I loved this movie, ultimately. It had great performances by iconic actors, it had memorable merciless killing scenes that probably would've traumatized me as a kid, but I found sick humor in enjoying the special effects as an adult. Including the shot following the bisection showing a native cannibal gnawing on Nick's dismembered arm like it was a drumstick from Kentucky Fried Chicken.

If you haven't seen Bone Tomahawk and are curious about watching a random Western horror film with some great actors and badass special effects, check it out. I will warn you though, some scenes are downright messed up and if you don't find some sort of sick moviegoer thrill out of watching it, you probably won't have such a great time. I absolutely enjoyed this movie for its unapologetic portrayal of being in grim situations in the Old West.