Bone Tomahawk

Bone Tomahawk is a 2015 American horror Western film written and directed by S. Craig Zahler in his directorial debut, and starring Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Richard Jenkins, Lili Simmons, Evan Jonigkeit, David Arquette, Zahn McClarnon and Sid Haig. It was produced by Jack Heller and Dallas Sonnier. The film is about a small-town sheriff who leads a posse into a desolate region to rescue three people who were abducted by a cannibalistic Native American clan.
Development of the film started when Zahler's friend and manager Sonnier recommended creating a film adaptation of Zahler's Western novel Wraiths of a Broken Land. Realizing that such a project could not be adapted on a low budget, Zahler opted to write a rescue Western instead. Casting began in October 2014, with Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Olyphant, and Jennifer Carpenter signed on to play before being replaced by Wilson, Fox, and Simmons respectively due to scheduling conflicts. Principal photography took place in California over a course of 21 days in October 2014.
The premiere of Bone Tomahawk took place at Fantastic Fest on October 1, 2015. RLJ Entertainment gave the film a limited release on October 23, grossing over $480,000 in theater sales and $4.32 million in home media sales against a $1.8 million budget. The film received mainly positive reviews, with praise for Zahler's screenplay and direction and the performances of the ensemble cast, and has since accrued a cult following.
== Plot ==
In the 1890s, brigands Purvis and Buddy encounter a Native American burial site. They are ambushed, and Buddy is killed while Purvis escapes. Purvis reaches a nearby town, Bright Hope, and buries his loot; seeing this, Deputy Chicory reports him to Sheriff Franklin Hunt, who interrogates then shoots Purvis (who claims his name is Buddy) in the leg when he attempts to escape.
Hunt sends the confident gunslinger John Brooder to fetch the town's doctor to tend to the leg wound. However he fetches Samantha O'Dwyer, the doctor's daughter and assistant, who is caring for her injured husband Arthur. Hunt leaves Samantha in the sheriff's office with his other deputy, Nick, to tend to Purvis' wounds.
That night, a nearby stable boy is killed. Hunt learns of the murder and goes to his office, finding it empty, with an arrow left behind. The Professor, an educated Native American, links the arrow to a tribe that he refers to as "Troglodytes" and locates the valley they inhabit on a map. He warns Hunt that they are a group of inbred cannibals, shunned and avoided by other native tribes. Certain that Samantha, Nick, and Purvis have been captured by them, Hunt forms a rescue party with Chicory and Brooder. Arthur insists on accompanying them to find his wife, despite his injury.
Days into their ride, two strangers stumble across the rescue party's camp. They are killed by Brooder, who fears they are scouts for a raid. The rescue party set up a new camp, but they are ambushed by raiders who injure Brooder's horse and steal the rest. The following day, a fight occurs between Brooder and Arthur, exacerbating Arthur's leg wound. Chicory leaves him to recover while he, Hunt, and Brooder continue on foot. Reaching the valley, the rescue party are ambushed by the Troglodytes. The rescuers kill three, but Brooder is injured, choosing to sacrifice himself, rather than live as 'a cripple'. Hunt and Chicory are captured.
Hunt and Chicory are imprisoned near Samantha and Nick. She explains the Troglodytes have already killed and eaten Purvis. The group witnesses Nick stripped, brutally scalped, bisected alive, and then consumed. Hunt tricks several Troglodytes into drinking liquor laced with opium tincture, with one dying while another becomes unconscious.
Arthur follows his rescue party's trail into the valley. He kills two Troglodytes and discovers they use an animal bone in their windpipes as a whistle. He blows on it, luring another Troglodyte, then kills him.
In the cave, the Troglodyte leader grows angry at the poisoning. The Troglodytes cut open Hunt's abdomen, shove the heated opium flask into the wound, and shoot him. Arthur arrives and aids Hunt in killing the leader. He frees Samantha and Chicory. A mortally wounded Hunt stays behind with a rifle, promising to kill any surviving Troglodytes when they return, to prevent them from terrorizing Bright Hope. As the three leave the cave, they see two pregnant Troglodyte women, who have had all their limbs amputated and stakes driven into their eyes to blind them. After the party is at a distance from the valley, Arthur blows on the Troglodyte whistle, with no response. Later, they hear three gunshots in the distance.
== Cast ==
== Release ==
In August 2015, RLJ Entertainment acquired distribution rights to the film, which had its world premiere at the Fantastic Fest on October 1, 2015. It later screened at the Charlotte Film Festival on October 3, 2015 and later at the London Film Festival on October 10, 2015. The first trailer of Bone Tomahawk was released on October 2, 2015. On October 23, 2015, Bone Tomahawk was given a limited release in the United States, and later was released on Blu-ray and DVD on December 29, 2015. Bone Tomahawk was released in a few theaters in the United States, grossing $475,846, plus a total of $4.28 million in home media sales.
The Blu-ray disc includes behind-the-scenes production footage, theatrical trailers, a collection of posters, a Q&A session with the director and cast and a deleted scene lasting for about two and a half minutes. The deleted scene is an extended version of the ending: Arthur, Chicory, and Samantha spend the night by a campfire, with Chicory naming Arthur as the new sheriff of Bright Hope before Arthur tries to read a "poem" to Samantha he wrote while he was working as a foreman.
== Reception ==
===Critical response===
Bone Tomahawk received positive responses from critics and at festivals for its acting (particularly for Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins and Matthew Fox), grittiness, Zahler's direction, and dialogue, which is stated to be a combination of The Searchers and various cannibal films. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 91% of critics gave the film a positive review with an average score of 7.2/10, based on 93 reviews, with a consensus of: "Bone Tomahawk peculiar genre blend won't be for everyone, but its gripping performances and a slow-burning story should satisfy those in search of something different." Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 17 reviews from mainstream critics.
Praise was given to the story and script, of which Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian enjoyed the mix of horror and Western genres, a sentiment that Kim Newman of Empire agrees to. Other reviewers such as Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times and Tom Huddleston of Time Out London enjoyed the comedy that was intertwined within the horror and Western elements of the film. Catsoulis stated that the "absymal racial politics" in the film is authentic to the time period. Reviewers such as Jeremy Aspinall from Radio Times called Bone Tomahawk a refreshing entry to the Western genre. Guy Lodge of Variety praised the film as "the wayward digressions of Zahler's script — navigated with palpable enjoyment by an expert, Kurt Russell-led ensemble — that are most treasurable in a film that commits wholeheartedly to its own curiosity value." John DeFore from The Hollywood Reporter offered the film similar praise, commending the film's performances, production design, cinematography, score, and screenplay, with the sentiment shared by Huddleston, Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com, and Don Kaye of Den of Geek.
Kaye directed criticism towards the film's runtime. Oliver Lyttelton of IndieWire found Zahler's writing to be engaging and unhurried, and the length to be not an issue. Other criticisms included Kevin Maher of The Times believing that the violence in the film was a copycat of Quentin Tarantino's use of brutality in his films while Piers Marchant of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette called the film racist, calling it "the equivalent of having as villains a sect of Orthodox Jews."
===Accolades===
Association 	Date of ceremony 	Category 	Nominees 	Result	References
Almería Western Film Festival 	October 9, 2016 	Best Technical-Artistic Western	Freddy Waff 	 	
Austin Film Critics Association 	December 16, 2015	Best First Film 	 	 	
Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema	April 23, 2016 	Best Avant-Garde & Genre 	S. Craig Zahler	 	
Dublin Film Critics' Circle 	December 18, 2016	Best Screenplay 	S. Craig Zahler	 	
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 	March 13, 2016 	Best Actor 	Kurt Russell 	 	
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 	March 13, 2016 	Best Supporting Actor 	Richard Jenkins	 	
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 	March 13, 2016 	Best Makeup/Creature FX 	Hugo Villasenor	 	
Festival International du Film Fantastique de Gérardmer 	January 31, 2016 	Jury Prize 	S. Craig Zahler	 	
Independent Spirit Awards 	February 27, 2016	Best Screenplay 	S. Craig Zahler	 	
Independent Spirit Awards 	February 27, 2016	Best Supporting Actor 	Richard Jenkins	 	
Indiana Film Journalists Association Awards 	December 14, 2015	Best Supporting Actor 	Richard Jenkins	 	
Indiana Film Journalists Association Awards 	December 14, 2015	Original Vision Award 	 	 	
Phoenix Critics Circle 	December 16, 2015	Best Horror Film 	 	 	
Phoenix Critics Circle 	December 16, 2015	Best Supporting Actor 	Richard Jenkins	 	
Saturn Awards 	June 22, 2016 	Best Independent Film 	 	 	
Sitges Film Festival 	October 17, 2015 	Best Direction Award 	S. Craig Zahler	 	
Sitges Film Festival 	October 17, 2015 	José Luis Guarner Prize 	 	 	
== External links ==
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== References ==
Category:2015 films
Category:American films
Category:English-language films
Category:2015 directorial debut films
Category:2010s Western (genre) horror films
Category:American Western (genre) horror films
Category:American splatter films
Category:2010s English-language films
Category:Films about Native Americans
Category:Films about cannibalism
Category:Films directed by S. Craig Zahler
Category:Films set in the 1890s
Category:Films shot in California
Category:2010s American films
Category:English-language Western (genre) horror films