Summary
Stephen King is surprised at how goodBone Tomahawkis in a glowing review, calling it “well worth watching.” Written and directed by S. Craig Zahler in his debut, the 2015 Western horror film follows an aging, small-town sheriff who leads his posse into a desolate region to rescue three people, including their town’s doctor, who were abducted by a cannibalistic Native American clan.Kurt Russell leadsthe surprisingly star-studded cast alongside Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Richard Jenkins, Lili Simmons, Evan Jonigkeit, David Arquette, Zahn McClarnon, Sid Haig, and Fred Melamed.
On X, formerly Twitter,Stephen Kingshared a glowing review forBone Tomahawk,and he was surprised at how good it was, calling it “a low-budget Western epic” that is “well worth watching.” Check out his post below:
King’s full review, as seen above, reads, “I was expecting nothing but a time-passer on a rainy Wednesday morning, and got a low-budget Western epic. The dialogue alone makes it well worth watching. Beware the last act, when a man is literally torn apart.”
How Has Bone Tomahawk Been Received?
The Western Horror Film Is A Hidden Gem
King is far from the only one who lovedBone Tomahawk, asthe Western horror film received rave reviews from critics and has a cult following of fans. Critics commended Zahler’s script and direction and the cast’s compelling performances, though they recognize that its slow-burn story and peculiar blend of genres, Western and horror, may not appeal to all viewers. It is likely, however, to please those looking for something out of the ordinary. In fact, as King mentions,Bone Tomahawkcontains a gruesome death scenein which “a man is literally torn apart.”
Bone Tomahawkhas a 91% Rotten Tomatoes score from the critics and a 74% audience score.
Bone Tomahawkwas made on a small budget of $1.8 million, and premiered at the Fantastic Fest in 2015, which primarily focuses on genre films such as horror. After the festival, the film was unable to secure a wide release from a major studio and instead, was given a limited release in theaters from RLJ Entertainment andgrossed only $475,846 at the box office. However, the movie went on to do much better on digital platforms and video-on-demand, making $4.32 million in home media sales.
Every Kurt Russell Western, Ranked Worst To Best
Kurt Russell has only made a few Westerns in his career like The Hateful Eight, but his outings have been some of the genre’s best in recent years.
Though it performed better on home media than in theaters,Bone Tomahawkremains underseen, and hopefully, King’s glowing review can entice his followers to watch the Western horror film and add to its existing cult following. Around the time of its release, Zahler’s filmbegan popping up on lists of the best horror and Western movies of the year, highlighting its genre-bending appeal.Bone Tomahawkhas largely been forgotten since then, but hopefully, King’s glowing review can bring it back to relevancy again.
How Bone Tomahawk Compares To S. Craig Zahler’s Other Films
Zahler Has A Unique Style
Bone Tomahawkmarks Zahler’s directorial debut, and the gritty tone and violence of that film would return to play a large role in his subsequent projects. After his 2015 debut, Zahler directedBrawl in Cell Block 99in 2017, which stars Vince Vaughn as a boxer-turned-drug mule who is tasked with killing a man in a maximum security prison in order to save his wife. The film, which also stars Jennifer Carpenter, is just as brutally violent asBone Tomahawk,and fared just as well with critics. Like its predecessor, it failed to make an impact at the box office.
In 2019,Zahler directedDragged Across Concrete, which takes his grindhouse style to the cop thriller genre. The film sees Zahler reunite with Vaughn, with Mel Gibson also playing a starring role.Dragged Across Concretefollows two cops who become involved with a dangerous professional thief after being suspended due to police brutality, and the movie features the same level of shocking, unsympathetic violence as its predecessors. Continuing a trend for the director, the film earned mostly positive reviews but made a measly sum at the box office.
91%
74%
$1.8 million
$475,846
$4.4 million
90%
$4 million
$79,208
$2.1 million
76%
67%
$15 million
$830,581
$1.5 million
- Box office and estimated physical media sales figures viaThe Numbers.
Zahler, as the chart above suggests, clearly has unique storytelling and filmmaking sensibilities that generally go over well with critics and audiences. These sensibilities, however, just aren’t widely appealing commercially. That being said,Bone Tomahawk,Brawl in Cell Block 99, andDragged Across Concreteare all films that seem poised to grow in popularity steadily over time as more viewers discover them on streaming and on VOD, as King has.
Does Bone Tomahawk Show The Way Forward For Westerns?
Zahler Infuses Horror Into A Familiar Genre
For decades now, Westerns have been risky theatrical propositions. As was most recently seen withKevin Costner’sHorizon: An American Saga, audience interest in movies about the American West just isn’t there.Bone Tomahawk, however, is far from a typical Western, and infusing the genre with another, like horror, is an interesting way to revitalize it, at least on paper.
In practice, though, there’s no evidence that this strategy makes Westerns any more appealing to theater-going audiences.Bone Tomahawk’s poor theatrical performance isn’t a promising sign, and an attempt to mix Western with sci-fi already went fairly disastrously wrong in 2011 with theDaniel Craig-starringCowboys & Aliens.Bone Tomahawk, then, is, and seems sure to remain, an interesting genre outlier.
Bone Tomahawk
Cast
Bone Tomahawk is a Western film that follows Sheriff Franklin Hunt, who gathers together a group of fighters to save three kidnapped victims from a clan of cannibals. After the town’s doctor is kidnapped along with two others, forcing the sheriff to partner with the town’s Native American professor and find the tribe before it’s too late.
