{"id":3256,"date":"2016-05-10T18:32:33","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T22:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=3256"},"modified":"2026-10-20T14:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T18:52:11","slug":"bone-tomahawk-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=3256","title":{"rendered":"Bone Tomahawk-2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bone Tomahawk-2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director S. Craig Zahler<\/strong><\/p>\n

Starring Kurt Russell<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scott’s Review #403<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"80075001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Reviewed May 10, 2016<\/p>\n

Grade: B+<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bone Tomahawk is a 2015 film almost nobody has seen or heard of, and it’s a unique independent horror\/western hybrid.<\/p>\n

It draws heavily on Quentin Tarantino and features an impressive cast for such a low-profile film.<\/p>\n

Bone Tomahawk is the proverbial diamond in the rough and is worth seeing for film fans with patience enough to sit through the slow-moving pace to get to the good stuff.<\/p>\n

The best of it comes in the final thirty minutes.<\/p>\n

Notably, the film was recognized by the Independent Film Committee and received two Spirit Awards, for Best Supporting Male (Richard Jenkins) and Best Screenplay.<\/p>\n

It won neither.<\/p>\n

The film does not have a “star”, but rather a myriad of heavy hitters in a clear ensemble.<\/p>\n

Kurt Russell plays Franklin Hunt, sheriff of a tiny town named Bright Hope, presumably somewhere in the West (Wyoming?) circa 1890.<\/p>\n

His deputy sheriff, Chicory, \u00a0is played by Jenkins.<\/p>\n

When drifters kill some travelers, they accidentally stumble upon a mysterious\u00a0Native American\u00a0burial ground and taint its contents, leaving one brutally murdered by the tribe.<\/p>\n

The other (played by David Arquette) stumbles into Bright Hope and is immediately deemed suspicious.<\/p>\n

When he, a female Doctor’s assistant, and a young local man disappear, it is realized that they have been\u00a0abducted by the owners of the burial ground, who are feared\u00a0to be cannibalistic savages.<\/p>\n

Hunt, Chicory, a foreman named Arthur (the doctor’s assistant’s wife), played by Patrick Wilson, and a local playboy played by Matthew Fox decide to trek through rugged terrain to find and rescue the missing.<\/p>\n

The pace is slow and will undoubtedly turn off some folks seeking slicker, high-tech viewing, or even some CGI, but the payoff for patience is immense.<\/p>\n

The group’s trek through the desert in pursuit of the accosted feels endless, and I did wonder what the point was, but the forthcoming turn of events makes the\u00a0tedium worth it.<\/p>\n

In defense of the long, plodding journey, this aspect lets the audience get to know and begin to care about the characters; some make it out alive, and others are not as lucky.<\/p>\n

The fun part is finding out who does and doesn’t.<\/p>\n

Bone Tomahawk contains one of the most gruesome scenes that I have ever witnessed in my thousands of viewed films.<\/p>\n

A male character, nude, is brutally scalped, and a spear is hammered into his throat in full view of the prisoners.<\/p>\n

As if this is not shocking enough, he is then turned upside down, split down the middle, and chopped in half, as his insides spill to the ground.<\/p>\n

The snapping sounds of his bones and the visual horror of the guts are even too much for the non-squeamish to view.<\/p>\n

It is uncanny that Kurt Russell plays a similar character in another 2015 film, the much higher-profile The Hateful Eight. Sure, he is a bounty hunter, but the period, setting, and costumes are almost identical.<\/p>\n

One might wonder which was made first.<\/p>\n

Bone Tomahawk is a guy’s movie, but not in the traditional sense; there are no explosions, no unnecessary machismo, and no obvious clich\u00e9s.<\/p>\n

But at the end of the day, it is a Western, and the cast is mainly male. Besides the Doctor’s assistant, the only other females are wives with small roles.<\/p>\n

The most glaring is Sean Young- given hardly anything to do in a cameo appearance. Otherwise, the only other females in sight are Native American women who are blind, deaf, pregnant, or missing appendages.<\/p>\n

A unique hybrid of film genres, Bone Tomahawk (2015) is a clever, different experience.<\/p>\n

I am a champion of independent film, and this film is a good example of why.<\/p>\n

Evidently, with a stellar cast of A-list or former A-list stars banding together to make a piece of art, it seems others champion good films too.<\/p>\n

Independent Spirit Award Nominations:\u00a0<\/strong>Best Supporting Male-Richard Jenkins, Best Screenplay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bone Tomahawk-2015 Director S. Craig Zahler Starring Kurt Russell Scott’s Review #403 Reviewed May 10, 2016 Grade: B+ Bone Tomahawk is a 2015 film almost nobody has seen or heard of, and it’s a unique independent horror\/western hybrid. It draws heavily on Quentin Tarantino and features an impressive cast for such a low-profile film. Bone … Continue reading Bone Tomahawk-2015<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,13,41,217,290,144],"tags":[1910,12937,12344,11873,1217,12936,2623,2346,3130,5314,1521,12939,12938],"class_list":["post-3256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-movie-reviews","category-horror-films","category-indiefilms","category-indie-horror","category-indie-horrorwesterns","category-westerns","tag-david-arquette","tag-evan-jonigkeit","tag-fred-melamed","tag-kathryn-morris","tag-kurt-russell","tag-lili-simmons","tag-matthew-fox","tag-patrick-wilson","tag-richard-jenkins","tag-s-craig-zahler","tag-sean-young","tag-sid-haig","tag-zahn-mcclarnon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3256"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24873,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3256\/revisions\/24873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}