S. Craig Zahler
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The sudden, queasy lurch into horror isn’t entirely successful: it is as if Zahler has bolted The Hills Have Eyes on to the end of The Searchers.
Winking explicitly to “The Searchers” with its ostensibly classical tale of four mismatched frontiersmen out to rescue abducted townsfolk from the clutches of a savage (and emphatically fictitious) native tribe, “Bone Tomahawk” may seem over-indulgent at 132 minutes, yet it’s the wayward digressions of Zahler’s script — navigated with palpable enjoyment by an expert, Kurt Russell -led ensemble — that are most treasurable in a film that commits wholeheartedly to its own curiosity value.
A tense, absorbing pursuit Western that turns into a Grand Guignol gorefest, Bone Tomahawk is what you might get if you crossbred The Searchers with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, or maybe Cannibal Holocaust.
Picture a modern version of The Searchers being written by Zahler while a series of Quentin Tarentino interviews are playing on low volume in the background.
Descriptions of this gorehound oater as “The Searchers” meets “The Hills Have Eyes” are all too accurate.
Bone Tomahawk is an exploitation western that references old classics such as Rio Bravo and The Searchers.
Evoking the epic, character-driven, melancholic, detailed procedural structure and tone of Michael Mann’s Heat , the gritty urban racial dynamic of David Ayer’s End of Watch and Dark Blue (as writer) , and the central political orientation of Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry, S. Craig Zahler’s massively ambitious crime drama Dragged Across Concrete is a supremely well crafted piece of genre auteurism.
Bone Tomahawk is an exploitation western that references old classics such as Rio Bravo and The Searchers.
Not even Jenkins displays much of his usually reliable skill and personality as he instead takes an exaggerated stab at creating this film’s version of Rio Bravo‘s Stumpy (Walter Brennan).
Many filmmakers have been influenced by the gritty neon glow of Michael Mann’s “Thief,” but Zahler may be the first to shoot images that have that look in endless long static-stare medium shots, with a wide-angle lens and no cuts.
It’s probably unfair to blame him as he also turned up in the equally brilliantly-cast Ravenous, and that film is a goddamn masterpiece, but if not Arquette then who?
Django Unchained (2012)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
influenced Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Themes Characters
Later this year Quentin Tarantino will follow up his "Django Unchained" with another Western, "The Hateful Eight", but his star Kurt Russell has saddled up for the equally violent and awesomely-titled " Bone Tomahawk ", which is also worth checking out despite a few pacing issues.
Bone Tomahawk is skittish about its racism, self-conscious in a manner reminiscent of Django Unchained.
Fox meanwhile seems content auditioning for the role of Calvin Candie in an off-Broadway production of Django Unchained.
Bone Tomahawk is The Searchers mashed up with Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes, for sure, but no one can accuse Zahler, who also scripted, of not stealing from the best.
The sudden, queasy lurch into horror isn’t entirely successful: it is as if Zahler has bolted The Hills Have Eyes on to the end of The Searchers.
The surprise is that “Bone Tomahawk,” while overlong and awfully leisurely (as well as remarkably gory in its latter stages), is quite enjoyable, rather like a version of “The Hills Have Eyes” transplanted to the old West and enriched by a strong cast and a good deal of flavorful, if often digressive, dialogue.
If you ever wondered what “The Hills Have Eyes” would look like remade in to a cheap C grade Western, look no further than “Bone Tomahawk.”
Descriptions of this gorehound oater as “The Searchers” meets “The Hills Have Eyes” are all too accurate.
“The Searchers meets The Hills Have Eyes,” is the simplest and most efficient way to describe the gruesome, brutal, and oddly compelling western / horror combo called Bone Tomahawk.
They’re bizarre, true savages, and the hints we get of their home life point towards something akin to The Hills Have Eyes.
With its chronological jumps, Wrath of Man has something of the feel of Steve McQueen’s Widows , and with its protagonist’s black-eyed determination, it recalls S. Craig Zahler’s Dragged Across Concrete .
Think of Christian Gudegast’s delightfully scuzzy Den of Thieves crossed with the epic L.A. grandeur of Michael Mann’s Heat, peppered just a touch of the nihilism found in S. Craig Zahler’s Dragged Across Concrete and you’re mostly there.
Lansdale is an East Texas writer, known for his work in the splatterpunk, Western, and crime genres, whose stories have been adapted into the films Bubba Ho-Tep and Cold in July.
We spend the first act hanging out, Rio Grande–style, in a small settlement — I hesitate to call it a town — where most of the men have departed on a cattle drive.
I also thought about The Hateful Eight , which felt indulgent and pointless right up until Tarantino introduced the gimmick of the “Lincoln Letter,” a forged document aptly symbolizing certain counterfeit aspects of the American dream.
The Hunt (2020)
Directed by Craig Zobel
influenced by Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017), Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Someone like, say, S. Craig Zahler, whose past three genre outings (Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99 and last year’s Dragged Across Concrete), have dug into the messiness of arch-conservative America with skill, if also an unnerving sympathy and oft-nasty level of vitriol.
Someone like, say, S. Craig Zahler, whose past three genre outings (Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99 and last year’s Dragged Across Concrete), have dug into the messiness of arch-conservative America with skill, if also an unnerving sympathy and oft-nasty level of vitriol.
Probably the best aspect of The Standoff at Sparrow Creek is one that works for most films from this particular distributor (for those unaware, RLJE Films is responsible for releasing Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cellblock 99 and Mandy) is that it explores sensitive subject material (here we have a mass shooting serving as the central event springing the plot into motion, handled respectfully) and embraces familiar genre trappings without resorting to a level of grandiose violence that undermines everything these characters have to say.
Enlisting current king of outlaw storytelling S. Craig Zahler - whose movies contain "questionable" politics at best - was a hell of a start, resulting in modern outsider classics Bone Tomahawk and Brawl In Cell Block 99 .
Evoking the epic, character-driven, melancholic, detailed procedural structure and tone of Michael Mann’s Heat , the gritty urban racial dynamic of David Ayer’s End of Watch and Dark Blue (as writer) , and the central political orientation of Don Siegel’s Dirty Harry, S. Craig Zahler’s massively ambitious crime drama Dragged Across Concrete is a supremely well crafted piece of genre auteurism.
Unlike other revisionist Westerns, dedicated to showcasing the brutality of existence in the old West (think The Hateful Eight or Bone Tomahawk ) The Sisters Brothers is, surprisingly, far more compassionate - embroiling us in the feelings of the brothers as they reconcile with a trauma from their childhood.
A kind of post-western in the vein of Slow West , Deadwood or Bone Tomahawk , Jacques Audiard’s The Sisters Brothers returns to the iconic open plains and hardy saloons of John Ford and Sergio Leone, but with the rose-tinted lens torn from the camera and flung into the mud.
A tense, absorbing pursuit Western that turns into a Grand Guignol gorefest, Bone Tomahawk is what you might get if you crossbred The Searchers with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, or maybe Cannibal Holocaust.
Bad Boys for Life (2020)
Directed by Bilall Fallah
influenced by Dragged Across Concrete (2019)
Plot
The closest analogue to Bad Boys for Life, in fact, is Zahler's own incredibly sticky Dragged Across Concrete--another intensely, intimately violent action movie in which buddy cops decide to go on that always ill-advised One Last Mission.
Hostiles also follows S. Craig Zahler’s Bone Tomahawk, an indie anti-western that used troglodyte ghouls as PC replacements for hostile Native Americans — an example of a genre degraded by a modern Hollywood that either doesn’t know or misinterprets the complexities of the great western movies.
On paper, a narrative about a man learning to overcome his violent prejudices against Native Americans while journeying cross country with them suggests a bizarre cross between Dances with Wolves and Bone Tomahawk .
It might be the most disturbing cinematic gesture since S. Craig Zahler’s “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” but that grisly movie looks downright subtle by comparison.