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.
Deadman's Road (2010) by Joe R. Lansdale, containing the following stories: Dead in the West (1986); Deadman's Road (2007); The Gentleman's Hotel (2007); The Crawling Sky (2009); and The Dark Down There (2010). Texas horror, Western and thriller legend Joe R. Lansdale gifts the horror reader with the collected adventures of Reverend Jedidiah Mercer here. Mercer stalks the Post-Civil-War American West in search of monsters to lay a beating on. The stories are ultraviolent and often bleak: the body count is high for friends and foes of Mercer alike.
One could almost imagine Robert E. Howard smiling down (or up) at these stories as a bleaker, Western take on his 16th-century monster-fighter Solomon Kane. Mercer's religion is even darker than Kane's -- his God is no God of mercy, and Mercer does his bidding because he really has no choice in the matter.
Dead in the West: Lansdale's short novel introduces Mercer and about as much of his back story as we get. Conflicted about serving God, hitting the bottle hard, Mercer finds himself dropped unwillingly into a battle against zombie-vampire things raised against a town by the Native American shaman the town murdered. Dead in the West was meant to be a movie -- and it would make one gore-soaked Western.
"Deadman's Road": Mercer is now more sanguine in his monster-fighting duties, this time against a burrow-living zombie with a thing for bees. Mercer's problems keeping a horse alive continue through to the end of the collection. So, too, the terrible meals he's stuck eating in almost every adventure, described lovingly and in great detail by Lansdale.
"The Gentleman's Hotel": A pitched, weird battle against Undead Werewolves, sort of. Mercer's attempt to keep his horse alive does not go well.
"The Crawling Sky": A Lovecraftian whatsit haunts a house, and a well. Say goodbye, horse.
"The Dark Down There": Kobolds enslave silver miners. Explosions follow.
In all, a highly enjoyable collection that makes for a fast-paced, ultraviolent read. Makes the version of Christianity seen in Stephen King's The Stand seem like a happy circle singing "Kumbaya." But the horrors come razor-wrapped in grim good humour, often Mercer's. Highly recommended.
