Imagine THE SEARCHERS melted into CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and you’ve scratched the surface of the devasting and much-hyped horror/western hybrid BONE TOMAHAWK, opening today in select US theaters.
Debut writer/director S. Craig Zahler’s moody, slow-burning meditation on violence starts with splatter, as a pair of drifters painfully saw away at the still-living throats of a gaggle of sleeping travelers in the scorching desert, robbing them and having verbose debates about everything from the weather to how many arteries are in the human body. Said drifters are played by David Arquette (SCREAM) and genre legend Sid Haig (THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, SPIDER BABY, hundreds of others) and with this bit of eccentric casting, it’s clear Zahler (who is best known as a pulp novelist) is aiming to bridge the gap between the grindhouse and the arthouse, set as the depravity is against a sun-baked, Terrence Mallick-tinted landscape and powered by hideous, casual acts of cruelty. This unsettling opening sets the tone for the queasy amalgam of stomach-churning, eye-filling and semi-heady action that follows and, though the movie might owe a small debt of gratitude to recent, overly-chatty Quentin Tarantino works like INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS and DJANGO UNCHAINED, BONE TOMAHAWK is a far less showy, far more disturbing and ultimately, a considerably more effective effort.
The story kicks into gear shortly after that aforementioned, grisly pre-credits opening, with the drifters attacked by a brutish native tribe and the surviving thug then rolling, dazed, into a dusty gulch. After a barroom scuffle leaves him shot in the leg, the drunken sod gets imprisoned by the Sheriff (played with typical grace and authority by the great Kurt Russell, who also takes the lead in Tarantino’s next western feature, THE HATEFUL EIGHT). When the wife of a recently crippled citizen (Patrick Wilson, INSIDIOUS) is called in to tend to the prisoner’s wounds, both convict and caregiver are attacked and kidnapped in the dead of night by the very same tribe that we saw in the opening. Turns out this is no mere clichéd clan of angry indigenous peoples; rather this is a species of human monsters, cannibalistic and feral and now, very, very pissed off.
Russell, along with his aged and kindly deputy (played by an amazing and barely recognizable Richard Jenkins from TV’s SIX FEET UNDER), a macho Marshall (Mathew Fox) and a limping, borderline hysterical Wilson, launch a party to track the tribe to their lair. Along the way the men talk, argue, bond and battle the elements. In fact, for a good portion of BONE TOMAHAWK’s running time, narrative takes a back seat to mood, tone and amusing, matter-of-fact conversation that serves to create an immersive environment that drags the viewer in, making them an auxiliary member in the men’s quest. Listening to Jenkins muse about how he wishes he could effectively read a book in the bath without ruining it, may not seem to serve any sort of purpose. But what it does is make you love this man, so when he enters Hell in the final third of the film, we are genuinely in knots, worrying about his safety.
Now, about that final third…
Without giving away too much, suffice to say that for the first two thirds of BONE TOMAHAWK, we’re stationed squarely in existential, Cormac McCarthy-meets-DEADWOOD territory; it’s most assuredly a purely cinematic western and a damn good one at that. But, when the men meet the monster they be seeking, the shift into full-blown, graphic horror is alarming and, in some sequences, difficult to endure. In fact, there is at least one scene of butchery that might just be the most shocking, emotionally traumatic sequence of Grand Guignol I’ve seen in any film. I’ve tried to shake it and, upsettingly, I just cannot seem to un-see it…
That said, BONE TOMAHAWK is no mere exploitation film and its horror elements aren’t tacked on, they evolve organically and are very much part of the landscape of the film. The movie is every inch a masterpiece, bold, minimalist of movement but profound in its impact and featuring solid character work by top-drawer actors giving voice to lyrical dialogue. And, it must be said that, unlike many westerns and, certainly unlike every horror film, there is almost no music in the movie. No score. No melody. No tone and no sound but the wind to latch our senses onto. We’re lost with these people in an arid, down-spiraling nightmare; a Conrad-informed venture into the heart of sandy darkness that doesn’t end well for anyone involved.
For my money, BONE TOMAHAWK isn’t just the best horror movie of 2015, it’s the best movie, full stop.
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