Perhaps the name of S. Craig Zahler does not tell you much, but he is one of the most forceful and violent genre film directors in cinema today. He always shoots from the most radical independence and his brief filmography has produced films such as buddy movie insane ‘Dragged Across Concrete’, the terrifying ‘Fight in Hall 99’ and this ‘Bone Tomahawk‘ that concerns us, and that you can see on Prime Video, at filming and in Movistar Plus+.
With a suffocating rhythm, typical of a horror movie, S. Craig Zahler tells us here how a stranger who has just arrived in the town of Bright Hope arouses the suspicions of the sheriff, who arrests him after a dispute in the salon. The newcomer is treated in jail, but the next morning both he and the woman who took care of him disappear from the town without leaving a trace.
A dirty and stark staging takes hold of this film that triumphed at the 2015 Sitges Festival, winning the Critics’ Choice Award and Best Director, and which made Zahler a regular at the festival with the rest of his films. The last section is a descent into hell that unexpectedly connects the film with the abysses of European genre cinema of the seventies, in a turn towards pure horror that will twist the guts of western purists.
The result is a unique and disturbing mixture that contains scenes literally never seen in a film of the genre, and that is reinforced by outstanding performances by Kurt Russell and Patrick Wilson, which provide a curious tragic touch to the film. A small marvel, certainly not for everyone, but for those who think that it is always good to force the machines. That’s what they are for.
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