Bone Tomahawk

USA, 2015, DCP, 2.35, colour, 132′
17.4. | 19:00 | Kinodvor

directed and written by S. Craig Zahler cinematography Benji Bakshi music Jeff Herriott, S. Craig Zahler editing Greg D’Auria, Fred Raskin cast Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Richard Jenkins, Lili Simmons, David Arquette, Sid Haig, Sean Young festivals Austin Fantastic Fest, Sitges (Best Director and José Luis Guarner Critic’s Award), Rotterdam, London

THIS IS WHY FRONTIER LIFE IS SO DIFFICULT. NOT BECAUSE OF THE INDIANS OR THE ELEMENTS, BUT BECAUSE OF THE IDIOTS…

When a group of cannibal savages kidnaps settlers from the small town of Bright Hope, an unlikely team of gunslingers, led by Sheriff Franklin Hunt, sets out to bring them home. But their enemy is more ruthless than anyone could have imagined, putting their mission – and survival itself – in serious jeopardy. Kurt Russell leads an all-star cast, including Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox and a brilliant Richard Jenkins in this gritty, brutal adventure chronicling a terrifying rescue mission in the Old West.

The directorial debut reveals writer, musician, cinematographer S. Craig Zahler to be a smart, witty screenwriter and a confident director. Bone Tomahawk is a truly unique cross between a sturdy western and a cannibal horror film, which takes its chosen genres deadly seriously, while replacing the selfironizing parody of contemporary western comedies with an unexpected spirit of “bright hope”, humour and humanity. And Kurt Russell hasn’t felt so at home for a long time. This ain’t no throwback to Wyatt Earp, it’s a return to Carpenter. Snake Plissken is alive and well!

“I had never done one of these independent-type pictures before. I had to crack up on something I read about [Bone Tomahawk] where they said it was destined to be a cult classic. Now with some of the movies I make, they say it up front! That’s code for it’s not going to get promoted well, nobody’s going to know what to make of it, the reviewers watching it aren’t going to know what category to put it into, and it’s going to be around for ten minutes. I’ve made quite a few movies that fall into that category. They were made, they were misunderstood or they were just so different that they didn’t follow the norm. I can give you Escape from New York to Big Trouble in Little China to Used Cars to Overboard to Tombstone. I’ve done ten of them! I look at that and think’s that’s okay. I think Death Proof is going to fall into that category. That’s Tarantino’s movie. I have people coming up to me who never went and saw it at the time because they didn’t know about it. I think that’s what’s going to happen here. There are going to be a lot of people who won’t know about this. It’ll come and go. I fully expect this movie to be, 15 years from now, something that people come up to me and say ‘Do you know what I just saw? Bone Tomahawk! Man, that was fantastic! What was that?’ I think that’s what’s going to happen. I think that’s where it’s at. … [The Thing] came out the same year as E.T. and we had an alien most of the audience couldn’t watch! It was just a story of paranoia, extremely well handled by a master. Yet at the time, it was just ‘Holy shit, what is this?’ … Now it’s completely a classic. It’s up there in the top echelon of horror movies. I remember reading it at the time and talking to [John Carpenter] about it. What’s this thing look like now? What’s it look like when it does this? I’ve been drawn to movies like this for a great part of my life and Bone Tomahawk did that and I thought it would be fun to go after it.”
– Kurt Russell, interview by Jacob Hall, Esquire

“Craig Zahler’s debut genre-jumper Bone Tomahawk is a surprisingly sturdy Western—a piece with obvious nods to John Ford built around a quartet of travellers on a rescue mission—until it takes a sharp left turn and becomes something closer to horror. These kind of genre mash-ups rarely work, which makes the impact of Bone Tomahawk that much more impressive. In fact, it’s indicative of how little studios think of the Western that such a solid piece of work with such a strong cast is being barely released in theaters, while also making its VOD release today. The once-thriving genre has become the stuff of independent cinema … that may not be a bad thing. We could be in the middle of an independent film Western renaissance.”
– Brian Tallerico, www.rogerebert.com

“Bone Tomahawk is a proper Western, a proper horror movie, and by combining the two, becomes something else entirely, and proves hugely enjoyable for it.”
– Oliver Lyttelton, The Playlist

“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.”  
– Guy Lodge, Variety