Review of Bone (1972) by Christopher S — 20 Oct 2007

Yaphet Kotto from Alien is a serial rapist & a thief that terrorizes a Beverly Hills couple one day while they're at their pool. A rat is caught in the draining system of the pool & they think he's an exterminator. He gets the rat out & throws it over the trees. Haha. He then makes them go up to the house so he can rob them. They uncover some of Bill's shady doings whilst looking for stuff for him to take. Bill is a sleazy car salesman. No money is found, hence Bill's shady doings. Bernadette, his wife, is pissed off despite at her husband in spite of what's going on. Bone then sends Bill to the bank to take out some cash from his secret bank account & gives him a certain amount of time to get back or "he'll rape his wife & cut her throat with a gold letter opener." Bill leaves to get money...then things turn don't turn out how you'd expect them. Bill takes his good ol' time & doesn't even get the money thinking back to his wife yelling at him after everything he was doing was uncovered. Bill meets an eccentric young lady that steals shit & "bitches." He sleeps with her. Then Bernatte ends up falling in love with serial rapist Bone, who is rather caring for someone who does all of that. They then plan to kill Bill(hah!) & collect on his life insurance policy. Bernatte kills Bill. Then Bone is nowhere to be found. Was he just a hallucination? Or was this all a dream of their son, a prisoner in a Spanish prison for trying to smuggle hash?

I really enjoyed this movie. It was a straight up black comedy. A lot of dark humour. Not your typical blaxploitation flick either. It was really well acted & a huge trip the entire 95 minutes. Great script. This was Cohen's debut as a director & it's one hell of a way to start a great a career. It also meshed flashbacks in whenever necessary, which worked out quite well. Pretty good score/soundtrack. Early 70's stuff. Political, racial, & social commentary meshed within in the style of Larry Cohen.

A great watch. An entertaining movie that pulled me right in. The opening scene is great.

And the house where Bernatte & Bill live is Larry Cohen's house. That's what I read anyway. Built by William Randolph Hearst.