i retired from letterboxd over bone tomahawk. i had given bone tomahawk 4.5 stars because it seemed like a knowing and meditative work on the intersection of the Italian Cannibal Cycle and The Western which it totally is. i didn't understand at the time that Bone Tomahawk was the first Trump Horror. Later when I read an interview with Zahler and an article about the production company he works with it is clear they are explicitly authoring MAGA-sploitation which is something i find interesting but ultimately cannot countenance. i no longer stand by my review but i don't want to delete it. i keep trying to write ANOTHER Bone Tomahawk review which i still might do or watch the Vince…

The Doctor has been kidnapped. Her husband, the injured Cowboy, is beyond grief. The Cowboy's best friend, the Gentleman, volunteers to go and bring her back. Who's leading the rescue? Well, that would be the Sheriff and the Deputy. Who kidnapped the Doctor? Let's say the kidnappers like to dress in white chalk, make funny sounding noises, shoot folks with bow and arrows, and eat dinner like they're Hannibal Lecter. Sounds yummy, right? From the opening shot, Bone Tomahawk, grabs you by the throat tight, and cuts your jugular. It's a western, with some elements of the supernatural, set in the 1890's. Led by an all star cast featuring the ageless Kurt Russell, the charming Richard Jenkins, the surprisingly awesome…

With 'Bone Tomahawk', S. Craig Zahler answers the question: 'How do you update the Italian Cannibal Cycle of Films for a contemporary audience?' by explicitly doing the opposite of that, acknowledging their ultimate debt to a previous cycle of films about the clash of imperial expansion and indigenous peoples, the 'Cowboy & Indian' film, and sensibly making a self-aware period piece out of this hybrid/not-hybrid genre apparatus set in (probably) the early 20th Century Western United States. This is not the only Kurt Russell Western in which he fights time-sensitive cannibal terror to free hostages (that would be 'Escape From ____'), but it is certainly the most awesome one made in the 21st Century. The way-excellent cast, including a truly incredible…

89/100

Shrieks, moans, wails, and spurts of blood; all woven within an Artificial evocation of a savage world. A Western finally goes full on-Digital Michael Mann, and Bone Tomahawk, instead of reaching for a product of grand ambition, scales down into a work of formal beauty and foggy spaces. It's a film pattered with details, sounds, and silences after startling bursts of violence, but moment to moment, it's elegantly contemplative. Bells are only a warning for the gunshots that soon follow, and instead of lingering on a wounded horse, Zahler frames every character in a state of stoic respect. Mannequins in the Old West, soaking in their situation and trying not to lose each other in the mist.

It's undeniably…