Review of Bone Tomahawk (2015) by Matthew Francis L — 04 Mar 2016

I first heard about this film in mid 2015, and ever since then I have been looking forward to seeing it. My local 'chain store' cinema didn't show it. Instead, they chose to clog-up their screens with a seemingly never ending screening of 'Star Wars: The force awakens' and 'The Good Dinosaur'. So I had to go a bit out of my way to find it and I am so glad I made the effort.

If I have one gripe about this film, it would be less to do with the film itself, and more to do with how people have chosen to pigeonhole it. Many have described the film in a way that makes it sound like some sort of western/horror mash-up. I think this does the film a great disservice. Sure it's a western, and sure it has its fair share of horrific scenes (one scene in particular will stay with you for quite some time), but those scenes have a certain quality to them that makes the violence of Bone Tomahawk something more akin to the horrific aftermath of John Doe's gruesome exploits in 'Se7en' rather than the cartoonish and over-the-top antics of 'Jigsaw' from the 'Saw' franchise; this is violence that is immediate and shocking, and as a result, the tension and sense of peril in the second half of the movie is off the charts.

I loved this film, and I can't recommend it enough.