Bone Tomahawk (2015): written and directed by S. Craig Zahler; starring Kurt Russell (Sheriff Hunt), Patrick Wilson (Arthur O'Dwyer), Matthew Fox (Brooder), Richard Jenkins (Chicory), Lili Simmons (Dr. Samantha O'Dwyer), Evan Jonigkeit (Deputy Nick), and David Arquette (The Fugitive): Made for just about $2 million, Bone Tomahawk is a fine movie by first-time director and writer S. Craig Zahler, who had previously made his Hollywood living by selling over 20 screenplays that never got produced.
Which is how the vast majority of writers in Hollywood make their money -- selling screenplays that never become movies. Zehler and his manager finally got fed up and decided to do a movie themselves, selling the project to pros like Kurt Russell and Richard Jenkins with the sharpness of the writing and the chance to be in a Western.
And Bone Tomahawk is a fine Western, and a fine horror-Western, and an interesting blend of the realistic, the grotesque, and the idealistic. It's a movie that has heroes, flawed, and flawed men who try to be heroes, and awful men, and a plot that never becomes formulaic or cliched.
A tribe of... something... kills one citizen of Western town Bright Hope and kidnaps two others. A Native American scholar identifies them as a cave-dwelling, cannibalistic clan to whom normal Native Americans give wide berth -- as he notes, they don't even look Native American, in part because their cave-dwelling has made them really pale. All that cave-dwelling allows Bone Tomahawk to set a record for most uses of the word "troglodyte" in a Western.
In having the Native American distinguish the troglodytes from all other Native Americans, Zahler also defangs the sting of genocide that might accompany the film. Well, with that and the unspeakable cruelty of the cave-dwellers to both outsiders and their own women.They're an American version of the story of Sawney Bean, only worse.
Sheriff Kurt Russell puts together a rescue party comprising town dandy and legendary Indian Killer Matthew Fox, acting deputy Richard Jenkins, husband of the kidnapped doctor Patrick Wilson (on a crutch with a broken leg!), and himself. Their journey to the region of the troglodytes will take nearly a week, covering an hour in film time as they encounter various obstacles and hardships. And then the final confrontation.
The acting is sharp, the dialogue flavourful and pithy, the cinematography top-notch (I especially like the bleached-out night scenes), and the action both realistic and horrifying when it comes. It's not for the squeamish, but the violence isn't exploitative. It's actually hard to look at. And it's a Western! And better than most major releases in any given year! Highly recommended.
The Shape of Water (2017): written by Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor; directed by Guillermo del Toro; starring Sally Hawkins (Elisa), Michael Shannon (Strickland), Richard Jenkins (Giles), Octavia Spencer (Zelda), Michael Stuhlbarg (Hoffstetler), David Hewlett (Fleming), Nigel Bennett (Russkie), and Doug Jones (Creature from the Black Lagoon):
Guillermo del Toro is in a groove here he hasn't been in since Pan's Labyrinth, combining genres and stirring up emotional attachment in service to a gloriously melodramatic story handled with delicacy and sold through terrific performances by the entire cast.
It probably helps to have seen The Creature From the Black Lagoon and Revenge of the Creature. But it's not necessary. The film hits some surprising notes as it plays with a comment made in del Toro's last movie that was metafictionally about that movie -- in Crimson Peak, we're told that this is not a ghost story but rather a story with a ghost in it. Similarly, The Shape of Water is not a monster movie but rather a movie with a monster in it. Who the monster really is... well, that's part of the story too.
Sally Hawkins is wonderful as the protagonist, mute because of an old throat injury, feeling excluded by the world of Baltimore 1962 except for her best friends Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer. Hawkins' Elisa is a night-shift cleaning woman at a US military experimental facility, as is Spencer's character. Jenkins is Elisa's room-mate and confidante, a gay man trapped in a very ungay world and a painter whose career has stalled out due to alcoholism and changing tastes.
Then along comes Jones, Doug Jones, the go-to actor for soulful monsters and super freaks, this time out playing an amphibious biped captured in the Amazon and much, much more than he appears to be. Jones is terrific, too. Michael Stuhlbarg is also excellent as a scientist with his own secret agenda. Michael Shannon is scary and warped as the sadistic neat freak charged by the military with learning the Creature's secrets.
It all runs beautifully and, unusually for del Toro, without any stretches in which one longs for an editor to curb del Toro's tendency to extending a movie 10-15 minutes beyond its optimum length. You've seen elements of this story in everything from Beauty and the Beast to del Toro's Hellboy movies. It's the style and the little bits and the performances that make this one special in and of itself. Highly recommended.
