Bone Tomahawk

by Jason Koenigsberg

One of the best overlooked films of 2015 was Bone Tomahawk. A genre mash up of western aesthetics with brutal horror violence and suspense. It is the story of four men who set out in the untamed wild west to rescue a group of captives from a Native American tribe of cannibals. What starts out as a routine western slowly unravels into a genuinely interesting and unsettling horror movie. All of the acting is great and at the center is Kurt Russell as a lawman giving one of the best performances of his career that deserved serious Oscar consideration. Between this film and The Hateful Eight, 2015 gave us two of the most unique western genre exercises we have seen in a long time and coincidentally both involved Kurt Russell delivering outstandingly diverse performances. Bone Tomahawk also came out the same year as Eli Roth’s cannibalistic horror film The Green Inferno. Any other year that would have been the best (and only) cannibal horror film but Bone Tomahawk surpasses that. This is a rare movie that is as beautiful cinematically as it is disturbingly violent. A visual treat featuring stellar acting that should not be ignored. 

Bone Tomahawk is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime.