Bone Tomahawk: Western Horror That Took A Bite Out Of Audiences

[Applause] [Music] the horror western bone tomahawk feels like it's the nightmare of someone who watched tombstone and cannibal holocaust back to back while running a fever four doomed men including the always amazing kurt russell ride out on a rescue mission in the old west in a forbidden desert valley they find the villains they're facing are a vicious tribe of cannibals guts are spilled flesh is consumed it's a jarring combination of genres when one that also works incredibly well which is why bone tomahawk happens to be the best horror movie you never saw [Music] this movie marks the featured directorial debut of ask exaller a writer who had sold over 20 screenplays before he decided to bring one of his scripts to the screen himself he got into directing out of frustration while he was paying his bills selling scripts only one of them had been turned into a movie the 2011 horror film asylum blackout he had written an adaptation of the anime series robotech for warner brothers and toby mcguire it didn't go into production steven spielberg and park chanwick both had been interested in his western script the brigands of rattled borge but neither of them were actually made into a movie all of this writing with no movies to show for it wasn't artistically satisfying at least when zoller wrote a novel he could get it published he's also a musician and when he made music he could get an album released he wanted that sort of payoff for his screenwriting endeavors so he had to make it happen himself zoller's manager dallas sonya suggested that he should make an adaptation of his novel wraiths of the broken land a shocking violent western story about an outlaw gang seeking to rescue two sisters that have been forced into prostitution zahler wanted to make his movie on a lower budget so wraiths of the broken land wasn't an option the scope of the story was too big but if sonya wanted a shocking violent rescue mission western he would deliver one just on a smaller scale that's when he started writing bone tomahawk said in the 1890s the story begins with a pair of criminals killing a group of sleeping men and stealing their belongings but that's not what gets these two in trouble problems arise for buddy and purvis when they decide to cut through a strange burial ground decorated with skeletal remains while buddy is attacked and eviscerated purvis runs for his life and ends up in a small desert town of bright hope it's clear to sheriff franklin hunt and deputy chicory that purvis is bad news he becomes violent when they try to talk to him so hunt shoots him in the leg they take him to jail and since the local doctor is drunk they have to call in the doctor's assistant samantha o'dwyer to get the bullet out of purvis's leg unfortunately purvis had been followed to bright hope by a tribe of brutal cannibals that still want revenge from desecrating their burial ground these cannibals kill a stable boy and abduct purvis samantha and deputy nick from the jail hunt forms a rescue party that includes the somewhat dimwitted chicory samantha's husband arthur who is determined to trek through the desert to save his wife even though he's nursing a broken leg and the exceptionally arrogant john brooder a man who has killed over 100 native americans in his life you killed 116 before these men set out to save samantha and deputy nick and sure purvis 2 if they can a native american professor warns them about who they'll be up against the professor tells them the abductors are a cave-dwelling tribe of indigenous people with no name and no language he describes them as troglodytes a spoiled bloodline of inbred barbarians that live on forbidden territory in a place called the valley of the starving men the professor considers this rescue mission to be a suicide mission and has no intent and taking part in it so hunt chicory brooder and arthur o'dwyer ride out on their own aiming to make the five day journey to the valley of the starving men in three days this journey does not go smoothly arthur's injured leg is a serious issue there are morally ambiguous encounters with other travelers and they lose their horses forcing them to finish the journey on foot which makes things even tougher for arthur but they do reach the valley and find the cave dwelling tribe is just as terrible and vicious as the professor described they attack with stunning speed and ferocity and even commit one murder in a way that would have fit right in if it were shown in cannibal holocaust things get quite gruesome and violent and bone tomahawk zoller was able to assemble an amazing cast to play the characters who witness and experience the violence the movie appeals to genre fans right away by casting sid egg and david arquette as buddy and purvis when sid egg is the first person to be violently killed off you know this is serious business the four men on the rescue mission are played by kurt russell richard jenkins patrick wilson and matthew fox samantha's played by lily simmons a relative newcomer who proved quite capable of holding her own on screen with her more established co-stars evan jonakite's deputy nick is at the center of one of the most shocking and memorable moments in the movie and along the way we get quick appearances from the likes of zon mclaren and catherine morris sean young fred malamad maestro harold james tolkien michael parade and the lost boys own jameson newlander bone tomahawk was always destined to have an impressive cast when zoller and sonya first sent the script out it ended up in the hands of peter sarsgaard who became the first actor to sign on he was going to play arthur o'dwyer sarsgaard and kurt russell have the same agent so the script was passed over to russell next and he signed on zahler had written the chicory character specifically for richard jenkins with his voice in mind jenkins actually changed his voice for the movie speaking chicory's lines in a way zoller hadn't imagined but it was a welcome change and zoller was glad to have jenkins playing the character that was always intended for him timothy oliphant was cast as john bruder early in the process and jennifer carpenter was cast as samantha sarsgaard olefin and carpenter ended up having to drop out of the project due to scheduling issues because it took two years to get the movie funded sonia was dedicated to helping zoller bring the script to the screen in exactly the way it had been written and told potential financiers that creative notes wouldn't be accepted but they received notes anyway they were told it wouldn't be possible to shoot the script without a 60-day filming schedule and a 10 million dollar budget some companies said they would contribute to the budget of zahler committed to a 90-minute running time and gave them creative control he wasn't interested in compromising his vision for anybody so sonya was eventually able to make a deal with a company called the fizz facility if sonya provided half the budget out of his own pocket fizz would provide the other half and that's how bone tomahawk ended up having a budget of 1.8 million dollars with sarsgaard oliphant and carpenter no longer available but russell and jenkins still firmly in place zoller brought in wilson fox and simmons various filming locations had been considered over the years it took to find funding new mexico utah romania but the movie ended up being shot in the santa monica mountains with a filming schedule of just 21 days zoller had to prove a lot of people wrong along the way financiers had warned him that even if he cut down the script he wouldn't be able to make the movie without a budget three or four times larger than the one he had crew members were telling him it wouldn't be possible to shoot the entire script in 21 days he was advised to cut pages before they even started filming but he decided he wasn't going to cut pages until it was clear they were falling behind schedule and they didn't fall behind the entire script was filmed and he didn't have to follow anyone's guidelines when cutting the footage together he didn't have to make a 90 minute movie the final cut of bone tomahawk reflects his vision for the film all 132 minutes of it it's a good thing bone tomahawk didn't go over schedule because kurt russell had a very small window of opportunity to work on it filming on this movie wrapped up on a saturday and the following monday he started rehearsals for quentin tarantino's the hateful eight that's why his characters in bone tomahawk and the hateful aid have a similar look russell was already growing out his hateful aid hair and mustache when he was working on the movie if he didn't need the hair for tarantino's movie he said he would have cut it to play sheriff hunt it would have been understandable if someone of russell's standing had given up on this project and walked away from it during the struggle to find funding but he stuck with it he had faith in zoller's ability to direct a film because he had worked as a cinematographer before and he knew he was going to have a strong cast around him he was also drawn to zahler's writing he liked the script and the structure of it the unique blending of genres although neither he nor zahler consider bone tomahawk to be a horror movie zoller considers the film to be a western through and through with a dash of lost world fiction a sub-genre that deals with the discovery of unknown civilizations he compared the story to the novel king solomon's minds which is about an adventurer alan quartermaine discovering a hidden civilization while leading a search and rescue party across africa he wanted to take a setup like that and build his own western mythology within it speaking with collider russell said that he stuck with bone tomahawk because quote i thought that it was an opportunity to do a movie that was in a new category in its own category i wouldn't know what to call it it's just not a straight western i've heard it referred to as a horror western it's not that that's kind of a bad call on it i think i think it's a graphic western i think that's fair but we were kidding about it the fact that if you went to a video store back in the day they had all these different movies and all these different sections there'd be a section with a question mark and an exclamation point and under that would be one movie bone tomahawk well for the purposes of this video we'll continue to call bone tomahawk a horror western instead of a question mark and exclamation point movie and there are certain moments in this film that are so intense viewers might not be able to endure them if they're not already an established horror fan aside from the quick attacks on sid hegg's character and the stable boy early on this movie does take its time getting to the horror it might take too much time for some viewers and the 132-minute running time does feel a bit self-indulgent on zoller's part he's not a filmmaker who believes that every scene needs to drive the plot forward he'll spend scenes on establishing the world the film takes place in learning more about the characters or he'll just include a scene to give the audience a laugh there are plenty of scenes in bone tomahawk that don't feel strictly necessary but if you connect with the characters in the way zoller is hoping you will you wouldn't want to lose any of the extra moments you'll want to spend as much time with these guys as possible zoller did an excellent job writing the characters who go on the rescue mission and making them a likable bunch and each of the characters delivered a great performance while bringing them to life we're following a group of men on a dangerous mission as they spend days traveling through the desert so things are not fun or comfortable for them and yet zoller and his cast still find ways to bring a lot of humor into the film whether it's through scenes of hunt and chicory discussing things like how to read in the bathtub without getting your book wet or the vain and arrogant brooder claiming to be the most intelligent person in their group because smart men don't get married after we followed the characters on a long difficult journey they reached the valley of the starving men and that's when the horror kicks in and it's worth the wait the troglodytes are terrifying and do awful things to the people we've come to care about if you get restless during the traveling stretch of the film just hold on the movie is still able to dedicate nearly 40 minutes to the characters dealing with the troglodytes trying to survive and trying to wipe out the tribe so that no one else will ever fall victim to them again bone tomahawk has moments of action and humor that are likely to stick with viewers after they watch it but there's one scene that's more likely to get lodged in your brain than any other the death of deputy nick which samantha hunt and chicory are forced to watch while being held captive by the troglodytes this is the moment that's reminiscent of cannibal holocaust a movie that was brought up to zoller multiple times when he was doing press interviews for the film while he wishes cannibal holocaust didn't have its moments of real animal deaths he does think it's an effective film overall and admitted that it was an influence on bone tomahawk particularly in the way it showed the violence speaking with dailydread.com zoller said his movie has quote a very dry presentation of the violence in the same way as cannibal holocaust the long shots of the horrible stuff happening to people you just see it unfold when you go in close those aren't perspectives anybody ever has on violence unless it's happening to them firsthand and in which case they haven't survived to watch the movie so i kept the style consistent with the hideous violence as with chicory and sheriff hunt talking about corn chowder the death of deputy nick is supposed to be shocking and appalling but zoller also uses this moment to show how strong sheriff hunt is instead of freaking out hunt talks to nick through this horrendous event and assures him he will be avenged so even while the viewer is cringing at the gore zahler is still taking the opportunity to do character work kurt russell has starred in some awesome cult films and genre movies used cars escape from new york the thing big trouble in little china and death proof bone tomahawk is a movie that's worthy of being listed up there alongside the greats like several of those movies it wasn't a box office success it didn't even make five hundred thousand dollars during its small theatrical run but it found its audience on home video where it earned over four million dollars from dvd and blue air sales now it stands as another cult classic on russell's filmography and like its predecessors it deserves to have a following that will grow with each passing year if you like western's bone tomahawk is a great one if you like horror zoller welcomes you to the valley of the starving men and if you like the idea of a horror and a western being blended together sitting through bone tomahawk is a blissful way to spend two hours [Music] [Music] you

Channel: JoBlo Horror Originals

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Keywords: horror movies, horror videos, joblo horror videos, arrow in the head, horror video, joblo horror, horror films, scary movies, horror series, wtf, review, movie review, horror movie review, joblo horror originals, AITH, john fallon, lance vlcek, horror review, horror, bone tomahawk, Bone Tomahawk review, Bone Tomahawk 2015, Patrick Wilson, Jack Heller, David Arquette, Kurt Russell, Matthew Fox, Sean Young, best horror movies, best horror movie you never saw, best horror

Id: uQVgcrxYBB4

Length: 15min 50sec (950 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 20 2022