Synopsis
Unleash the Dogg.
Over 20 years after his death, local legend and benefactor Jimmy Bones returns as a ghost to avenge those who killed him and restore his neighborhood
2001 Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson
Over 20 years after his death, local legend and benefactor Jimmy Bones returns as a ghost to avenge those who killed him and restore his neighborhood
Bones - Bis auf die Knochen
100
It's incredible that a movie like Bones came out amidst the late-90s/early-2000s era of Horror. So much of the output around that time was focused on that Scream money, but most rip-offs didn't have the reverence or knowledge of Horror history to really make a dent in response. Enter Bones: a ghostly Snoop Dogg vehicle that has less to do with Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees than Fulci, Craven, Argento, Stuart Gordon, and Hellraiser. Not to mention the history of Blaxploitation. It's a remix of genuinely novel and underappreciated horror ideas, and then the film deploys them in such a way that you would've thought Screaming Mad George was involved. As much as it is a story of gentrification,…
DAWG... DAWG... WHAT WAS THAT FACE DAWG! DAWG I will have nightmares, DAWG. Nightmares!!!... DAWG.
DAWG, from the very beginning, this movie screams 2000s and New Line Cinema. From the editing to the performances to the premise, DAWG. It seems like it could have easily come out of a film made after the 90s but very early in the 2000s, when horror movies still hadn't found a new trend, so they were kind of stuck in the last decade, DAWG. In the case of this story, it is clearly influenced by "Candyman" and "Nightmare On Elm Street" and although at first sight such similarities might be a bit too obvious DAWG, this was a campy fun horror film with some…
I loved this. I loved when the dog projectile barfed maggots. I love Snoop's undeniable screen presence. I love that I'm not a film critic and am under no obligation to say anything else about this because, morherfucker, I can't think of anything to say!!!!
a funny ooey gooey primal scream in alien green/viscera pink/giallo red, a remix of influences into something entirely unique. solidarity with ghosts forever ❤
Bones is criminally underrated, and is probably one of the scariest and most likeable black horror movies I've seen.
Bones doesn't have a showy story -- a murdered drug dealer coming back to life for revenge is not something that draws a crowd. However, the genius decision to cast Snoop Dogg as the main villain Jimmy Bones magically brings a breath of fresh air to the stale premise, and adds tons of charm and hilarity to the supposedly one-dimensional character. Snoop is far from a decent actor, but he blends perfectly well with the cast, thanks to his natural, perfect mixture of coolness and menace.
Another highlight from the cast is definitely Pam Grier, who probably delivered the best acting…
Ernest R. Dickerson stayed most of the 90’s and 00’s trying to reimagine Blaxploitation in an era of more political charged black cinema and this one, his only decent budget film I had never seen, is a pretty impressive collection of angry horror imagery. At worse it plays like a hip hop remix of A Nightmare on Elm Street at best it as close to Fulci as post Scream American horror got (great maggots, by the way). It is not always as coherent as it wants to be, but the dilapidated spaces and violence have a bite.
This movie rules so much and it's a legit shame that at the time critics/audiences didn't seem to vibe with it - now as a result we don't have a bunch of NOES-esque BONES sequels. Give me more maggot-barfing dogs and gnarly hell-walls.
"Crack is whack." - Whitney Houston (NIF)
Almost every time Bones wasn't on screen I would get sad, and I'd think 'oh man...where's Bones?'
Bones was killed in the 1970s by bad people. Bones (Snoop Dogg) comes back to life because of a dog and then revenge. I think if that many people warned me about a dog, I'd just be like 'maybe we shouldn't get this fucking dog.' Also, Pam Grier is in this in a role I wish was cooler but still cool. OH...and there are super boring teens.
I really liked the parts with Snoop Dogg and most of the horror. There are little homages to various blaxploitation films from the 70s that are fun. I wish they took out nearly all of the stuff with the teens and spent far more time on the bad guys and stuff.
It's fine.
P.S. Who knew Mary Queen of Scots stole a scene from Bones.
ok um, this was a lot, my mind is in shambles and just...a mess. one of the wildest things i've ever seen. this review probably sucks since 1. this movie fucked me up and 2. school is starting to reduce my regular movie watching(-ness?).
if there's one thing that bones undoubtedly is, is confident, having a tight grip on the horror genre in several of its forms, as well as the blacksploitation films from the 70s, most prominently from its director, ernest r. dickerson. his frequent collaborations with legend spike lee his transferred to him a vision of fierceness, and uses that vision to rage out against the political horrors faced by black america, and a broader commentary of post…
Dickerson plays into blaxploitation and Gothic traditions before tapping into the canted madness of Lucio Fulci by way of nu metal cinema. As is always the case with art, the decisions that date the film are the things that burn with an optimism for the form that can be felt more strongly now than ever before. A lot of this has to do with a keen feeling for the past as well as an awareness of the technical affordances and changing thematics of its own time: What does blaxploitation mean today? Can the post-Fordist cityscape be seen as Gothic? What would the old masters do if they had access to the image-making tools that we have now?
Bones sees the…
Man, the world really did Ernest Dickerson and Snoop Dogg dirty by not making Bones a hit. 😕
I had never seen this one until today, and while it’s not mind blowing or anything,
I had a ton of fun with it!
I remember when this came out and I really wanted to see it, but I wasn’t able to find anyway to get in and see it, since I was only 14 at the time. I remember I was so jealous of a couple of my friends who managed to sneak in and see it. My friend Greg (whose opinion on things I held in high regard, for some reason) then told me “It was really whack” and then…