So, I've talked about horror quite a bit on this blog. And rightfully so. I love horror films. From 30s monster movies to 80s slasher flicks, and modern takes on classic ideas, horror is awesome. And one of the best things about horror as a genre is it's ability to meld with other genres. Combine it with comedy and you get An American Werewolf in London. Combine it with science fiction and you've got The Thing. Throw drama in there and you'll get The Babadook. But what happens if you make a horror western? What do you get when two seemingly different genres are put together? Well, you get one of the best horror films in recent memory, Bone Tomahawk.
Kurt Russell is an interesting actor to say the least. On one hand, he's a product of the 80s. With his masculine bravado, fabulous hair and suavely gruff demeanour, he's the ultimate 1980s action hero. But something quite interesting about Kurt Russell is that he's actually making a sort of comeback. From Quentin Tarantino to Marvel, this guy is making quite the return. And few films in his entire catalogue make as much of an impact as Bone Tomahawk.
I mean, considering Russell is significantly older now, you'd assume he'd struggle with heroic roles. His whole archetype doesn't really suit him now, so making a western set horror movie with him as the lead is a very strange idea. But it makes for a very pleasant surprise when you sit down and watch it.
The 2010s have been good for horror. Okay yeah, some bland stuff here and there, and the studio influenced saturation hasn't been too kind to the genre (hello Rings), but overall, the movies gods have granted us some genuinely scary films. Australian mental health demons, STDs that hunt people down, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner meets Being John Malkovich, there's been no shortage of gems over the last few years. But it's S. Craig Zahler's strange marriage of the west and hell that really wows.
Bone Tomahawk is a little bit like True Grit..... if it was made by Eli Roth. A man's wife is kidnapped by a strange group of savages, and he teams up with the sheriff and a small posse to rescue her. The film is this fantastic road trip across the plains, and contains all sorts of brutality and amorality along the way, as any good western should. Actually, for the first two thirds, it's not even a horror film. It's a very atmospheric western, one that analyses the bigotry and moral ambiguity that permeated the outlooks of people at that time.
It's a violent film. That statement may sound obvious, seeing as it's rated 18, but there's more to the violence than pure gore. The gore's there too, but it's important to remember that the violence comes from both genres, and it exists here for other reasons. I mean, of course it ties into the horror, and makes the conflict unbelievably real feeling, but most of the violence in Bone Tomahawk comes from the western aspects.
It's easy to forget that movie violence goes deeper than what you see on the screen. Violence isn't just in the visuals. It's in the ideas that the film presents, too. That's a key idea in the western, the violent ideologies that people have, and how they affect society and the people in it. Bone Tomahawk uses its violence not just to scare it's audience with gory visuals, but to make them stop and think about that world and it's attitude to hate and conflict. There's a fantastic scene involving a group of Mexicans thats particularly poignant, and exposes a lot of the bigotry and hate that swirls under the surface of the cowboy film.
The sheriff and his gang don't tolerate those that they encounter. Much like The Wild Bunch or any Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns, Bone Tomahawk explores the violence that it portrays on screen, and uses that to dissect human nature. It's bleak and unflinching in it's take on our bloodthirsty tendancies, but it offers a take on violence that's interesting and different. How far do we go to pursue justice? Can we justify violence against other people? And most crucially, are the cowboys any better than the savages that they hunt? Maybe not. Zahler breaks these issues down and applies them to all of the characters. The heroes aren't heroic, and the people they fight are terrible, but that's just the kind of world that Bone Tomahawk is set in. A world of violence, and outlaws, and savages. It's gore and brutality is used to ask some big questions, and leaves it to the viewer to decide on an answer.
But the violence is also a big part of the fear factor too. Yeah, its used to explore the film's themes, but it's so extreme that it becomes disturbing. Okay, gore fests aren't automatically scary, but when put in a bleak atmosphere and wrapped in questions about human nature, extreme violence becomes unsettling. Because it's not just the gore that's scary. It's the outlooks that cause peoe to commit violent acts that frighten. And that goes for every act of violence in the film. There's horror in the cowboys bigotry and hate, but there's also absolute terror in the acts that the tribe commit, which are never fully explained. And Zahler let's the scary parts of those mindests sink in.
This film is truly disturbing all throughout, but it's the climax that terrifies. When you actually meet the tribe, and witness their violent acts firsthand, things get good. The film is scary when the violence comes from an understandable place, but when the violence is random and unexplained, it's freaking terrifying. When you see what the tribe do, you're seeing it from the sheriff's point of view. He's an outsider to their culture, and doesn't understand their rituals. When you view it from this perspective, everything becomes unfathomably scary, because you never understand these happenings. Zahler uses the fear of the unknown and the brutality of the violence on display to elevate the climax to terrifically scary proportions, and it works.
That's the real horror. It's not like "oh these cannibals are murdering people how scary". It's the brutal realism and horrifying motives of the violence that makes Bone Tomahawk come alive. It's portrayal of violence is terrifying, because it gets right to the root of it, and finds the fear along the way. It's not just a gory bloodfest, but an exploration of violence, which is a naturally disturbing idea.
So, what have we learned? Well, for one, the horror and western genres have an interesting link. Violence. Both of these genres contain ideas about violence in some way, and it's through finding the middle ground that Zahler is able to craft such a spooky experience. Because it's old West values and horrific visuals combined. And that's surprisingly scary. These are both ideas that allow Zahler to explore violence as an idea, and he finds both fear and pathos in his conclusions.
So while a horror-western may sound odd, it actually makes a huge amount of sense when you think about it. They're both genres that dissect violence, and they both create bleak, uneasy atmospheres when they do so. And here is no exception. Bone Tomahawk is a gruesome, tense and surprisingly human experience. So maybe Kurt Russell was an odd choice, but this movie dates to bring him back, and does so in style. Russell perfectly sells the jaded amorality of the western hero, but also has the sympathy and humanity of the horror victim. It's a wonderful performance that effortlessly revives it's star. It's not just a scary cannibal film, it's a chronicle of the darkest parts of humanity that scares with it's brutal violence and fearless gaze into the human mind. Bone Tomahawk shouldn't have worked, but it did, and it provided a thoughtful look into the human mind in the process. It may seem a bit B movie-ish, but trust me, there's a beautifully brutal allegory in there somewhere. And it's well worth watching to find it.
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