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Bone Tomahawk

8/10

Stars: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins, Matthew Fox, Lili Simmons, Evan Jonigkeit, Kathryn Morris, Sid Haig, David Arquette, Fred Melamed, Sean Young, Michael Pare, Geno Segers

Director: S. Craig Zahler

First-time feature film director Zahler’s wonderfully nasty, eminently enjoyable blend of suspenseful frontier Western and gross-out shocker, which kicks off with a grisly throat cutting, stars The Hateful Eight’s Kurt Russell as sheriff of the small frontier town of Bright Hope - population 768 – most of whose men have galloped off on a cattle drive.

So, when bizarre “troglodyte” Indians, summed up as “a spoiled bloodline of inbred animals who rape and eat their own mothers” begin snatching locals and killing them, it’s up to Russell, along with crippled old deputy Richard Jenkins, ranch foreman Patrick Wilson and naive deputy Evan Jonigkeit to ride off to find out what’s happening…

Zahler’s film is undoubtedly stomach-churningly nasty and guaranteed to scare many moviegoers shirtless but his approach to his off-beat story is not simply to be as gross. No, Bone Tomahawk is a compelling and clever blend of two standard cinematic genres, smartly spiced with black humour and a film that succeeds very well as both.

Alan Frank

USA/UK 2016. UK Distributor: The Works. Colour.
126 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 18.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 2, Violence/Horror 3, Drugs 1, Swearing 3.

Review date: 12 Jun 2016

DVD review