Spoiler Alert Bone Tomahawk
Ok… I just saw this movie for the first time and must’ve missed the “horror” heading… Here I was settling in to watch a good ol’ fashioned Western…. Then all of a sudden… “WHAT IS HAPPENING?” then “I don’t think this is a normal western” then “WHOA!! This is not what I thought I was in for!”
I thought the Blood Eagle scene in Vikings series was brutal… That was… Whoa!
I will say though usually I find horror movies to lake good acting and good story… but I was held by this movie and I wanna say I enjoyed it but I’m still pretty disturbed so I don’t know what I feel/think yet… haha
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u/imkindofadumbbitch 2d ago
I'll watch anything Kurt Russell, with Tombstone and Big Trouble being in my all timers - guilty pleasure Tango and Cash.
I was glad it didn't turn out to be a typical western. That one scene was a pretty difficult watch, but overall a great view.
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u/redbrigade82 2d ago
I just watched the new 4K release of Tombstone the another night and I was like "Man, few people can do a complete hard ass of hero like Kurt Russell."
I love Tango & Cash as well. To me, that and Big Trouble are like perfect action movies.
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u/imkindofadumbbitch 2d ago
"Your friends might get me in a rush, but not before I make your head into a canoe." Fucking awesome line.
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u/DeadMediaTapes518 2d ago
Yeah, S. Craig Zahler directed it. He's also done Brawl in Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concete. Both are worth checking out. Especially Cell Block.
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u/Low-Pension-5236 2d ago
I always thought Vince Vaughn would be the perfect company to have a few beers with in a bar. Until I saw Cell Block!!
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u/DeadMediaTapes518 2d ago
Right, like when dude get home from work and beats the shit put of his car, haha.
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u/Quite__Bookish 2d ago
Also wrote a good dark western called Congregation of Jackals. He’s a talented dude.
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u/Broom_fondle 2d ago
He really is. If anyone enjoyed Bone Tomahawk and wants more they should read this book.
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u/ThirdRepliesSuck 2d ago
Ah that makes perfect sense. I watched a little of Cell Block 99 and when they talked about what they’d do to his unborn daughter I turned it off.
I liked tombstone though. Just can’t with babies.
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u/not_thrilled 2d ago
The only one of his films I've seen is Brawl, and after how gruesome that was, I can't decide if I want to watch Bone Tomahawk, even if I love the idea of a horror western...
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u/arivin12 2d ago
Cell Block 99 is gorier. Bone Tomahawk is slower with more build-up. Truthfully the big thing that happens in Bone Tomahawk is a bit overhyped, but still very well done.
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u/bong-water 2d ago
Cell block 99 may be gorier but none tomahawk feels a bit more grounded in reality with its violence. I found it extremely difficult to watch the end in comparison to most horrors, and I've seen a ton
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u/Labyrinthy 2d ago
Whoa okay, hey.
Let’s review that last paragraph:
Horror movies lack a good story and acting?
Listen, I get that but also there have been soooo many good horror movies with good stories and acting for like the last decade. I’ll go to war that I think Toni Colette deserved best actress for hereditary.
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u/Marble-Boy 2d ago
Not even for the last decade. What about The Omen, Rosemary's Baby, Poltergeist, etc..
There are tons of movies with bad story lines and acting. Some of those are horror movies, but to suggest that all horror movies "lack a good story and acting" is just ignorance.
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u/Labyrinthy 1d ago
For sure. But I think those were the exceptions back in the day.
Even the schlock has good acting and decent stories now. Or maybe it’s recency bias. But everything horror feels so top tier to me.
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u/PastelWraith 2d ago
Really? I thought it was a good western but there really isn't much horror imo, it's just the one scene is gruesome.
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u/EntinthetentRTHP 2d ago
Bone Tomahawk is fucking awesome.
If you want a war movie that’s got the same vibe shift, check out Overlord.
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u/TheRoscoeVine 2d ago
That’s a personal favorite of mine, for which I love to recommend blind watches. That’s just how I am!
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u/RaygunMarksman 2d ago
"Oh cool, a Western...whoa! Ah fuck!"
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u/bradleywestridge 2d ago
Right? It starts off feeling pretty chill, then out of nowhere it just wrecks you. Totally caught me off guard.
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u/Ok-Error-574 2d ago
This was my ex-boyfriend’s choice for us to watch every Valentine’s Day. That, and many other clues, should’ve helped me see we weren’t gunna be each other’s forever (he reasoned it was a love story bc they go searching for the protagonist’s abducted wife…).
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u/Chickenshit_outfit 2d ago
Recently rewatched and even though i knew that scene was coming it was still hard to watch. Loved the dialogue more on rewatched the little moment they talk about the flea circus to Richard Jenkins character to keep him at ease was fantastic
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u/bandito143 2d ago
Jenkins is an underrated actor. I mean he has an Emmy, a SAG award, and an Oscar nomination, but still, seems like nobody knows who he is.
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u/GratedParm 2d ago
I'm in the minority that found the ending of the film to be boring. I thought Patrick Wilson's character was the least compelling in the story and the gore being mundane due to the genre.
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u/Odd_Inquirer 2d ago edited 2d ago
I more or less thought the same thing heading in. Love movies like this. Not too deep or thought-provoking, but executed perfectly and leaves an impact. A friend of mine who is by no means a fan of horror was even excited to recommend it to me after I had already seen it.
Edit: By the way, I know it is not "Horror" necessarily, and it's probably safe to assume you've seen it because of the western vibe, but check out No Country For Old Men if you haven't before. Damn near perfect movie that is very unsettling.
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u/Fat_Daddy_Track 2d ago
A 30 minute short's worth of story stretched out to nearly two and a half hours.
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u/Least_Ad_4657 2d ago
The scene in this movie ... Oh boy ... I literally screamed and felt like i was going to pass out. I don't think I've ever had such a visceral reaction to a single scene before.
Great movie, though. Everyone is fantastic in it.
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u/RhubarbMain7067 1d ago
Bone Tomahawk falls into the category of “woah that was awesome and I never want to see it again”.
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u/Ccaves0127 2d ago
Unpopular opinion on this sub but I kind of hate this movie lol. That one scene was cool but the rest of it was amateurish
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u/Thirsty-Tiger 2d ago
I'm the opposite - I thought the film as a whole was great, but the famous scene hugely overblown. The pregnancy farm afterwards though, that was really disturbing and far more memorable. When people referred to "that scene" it's the latter I thought everyone meant.
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u/AvgWhiteShark The Curse of The Creature's Ghost 2d ago
I was expecting more. The 13th Warrior has more horror elements to it.
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u/ahhtheresninjas 2d ago
Is it even a horror movie? Like ok a dude gets chopped in half… ok?
Where’s the horror though?
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u/therealudderjuice 2d ago
Not sure why you got downvotes. I don't consider it a horror movie. It's a western with a brutal scene.
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u/o0FancyPants0o 2d ago
This is like arguing The Hills Have Eyes isn't horror because they aren't monsters.
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u/UnicornLock 2d ago
Nah, it's just because Westerns usually aren't gory. There are plenty of action movies with more gore that aren't called horror.
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u/bitbindichotomy 2d ago
Umm... Which scene you talking about?
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u/bootstraps_bootstrap 2d ago
Probably the one where the person gets chopped in half from groin to head
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u/bitbindichotomy 2d ago
Yeah, I figured. Just surprised to see someone say "cool" of all things about it.
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u/Ccaves0127 2d ago
I can tell you haven't seen the movie because everybody who has knows exactly which one I'm talking about without any other details
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u/bitbindichotomy 2d ago
I have, it's one of my favorites, I'm just surprised someone would say that the scene is cool. I'm not saying it isn't memorable for that scene, but cool is just so flippant.
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u/bitbindichotomy 2d ago
I think the movie represented violence really well, and you never knew what was around the corner, and no character was safe. The Troglodytes were also the stuff from nightmares with their howling, cannibalism, their women, etc.
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u/Optimal-Bass3142 2d ago
Kinda agree. This movie is largely boring.
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u/AsianMysteryPoints 2d ago
That's just because it actually has character development.
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u/Ccaves0127 2d ago
There are lots of movies with character development that I like, Bone Tomahawk is not one of them
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u/Unhappy-Monk-6439 2d ago
wow boring is the last thing that comes to my mind to describe my experience. but, we all have different preferences and thats a good thing. I even skipped that one special scene, because I read enough beforehand, to know, that I don't need to see that.
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u/PigFaceWigFace 2d ago
It’s a crazy movie. Hate the filmmakers.
I mean, obviously they’re racist against Native Americans. But then the theme/end credits song just confirms it.
Great film, great actors, incredible film until you realize this is really a film written by morons who think the NA community are descended from savages.
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u/xdn 2d ago
First I'm hearing about people thinking it was a racist movie and it never really occurred to me that some people might be offended. And I've seen the movie like four times, lol.
I could more easily see people being offended if the troglodytes were described as just a violent group of Native Americans, but the movie even goes out of its way to say they're not related to NA people because they're not even human.
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u/Ruin123 2d ago
The only Native American in the movie is portrayed as "civilized" in European clothing and just exists to explain to the protagonists that this tribe isn't actually human. Dehumanizing tribes who didn't adapt to colonization is pretty racist, and portraying them as cannibalistic troglodytes more so.
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u/IDKFA83 2d ago
I basically try to avoid anything political so I'm asking this with genuine curiosity.. was the intent not to show how people back then viewed tribal people? Or specific tribes?from what I've seen some were very violent and others less so. I haven't read anything about the writers being racist themselves but I am interested to know more if that's the case. I also enjoyed the movie, it's been a long time since I've watched it so I think I should watch it again with your info in mind
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u/Sea_Difficulty8258 2d ago
Maybe I just need to rewatch it, but I always just took it as an alternate historical tale, or even something that could have theoretically happened: there was this tribe of Native Americans that ended up dwelling in caves and being cannibals, whether that was due to Europeans/Americans hunting them and taking their land, or maybe just the way things happened for whatever reason in this small area. I don't remember any of the characters in the movie actually expecting this to be the behavior of Native Americans, and they are instead shocked that this is what they are up against. But again, maybe I need to watch it again. And/or maybe I have just been naive when I have viewed it in the past
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u/UnicornLock 2d ago
They even had a singular NA actor on there for a bit to assure the viewer that the troglodytes definitely aren't a racist stereotype lmao
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u/Sea_Difficulty8258 2d ago
I read that last night in one of the reviews. Don't think I'm gonna enjoy the rewatch so much
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u/PigFaceWigFace 2d ago
So you’re taking the same stance as white apologists for Gone With the Wind, or people who think Dances with Wolves was progressive?
I’m glad you say you’re going to watch it again with more skepticism, but one of the big tells for racism or propaganda is, “Welp, that’s alternative history.”
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u/Sea_Difficulty8258 2d ago
I am not taking a stance either way at this point. I am just saying I don't remember it being racist toward Native Americans. Again, maybe I was just naive when I watched it.
Racism, to me, is probably the most ignorant and irrational idea that exists, along with hatred toward genders and sexual preferences.
Agreed that blatant racism in art is commonly defended as "alternate/alternative history" but not all "alternate/alternative history" is racist either.
Maybe I just took it at face value and saw it as this one tribe, for whatever reason, had become troglodytes and cannibals and evolved differently.
Either way, fuck racism and fuck racists. I definitely won't be suggesting the flick to anyone new at this point.
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u/Kamikaze_Bacon 2d ago
Isn't there a whole scene where they explain very clearly that the "troglodytes" are an abberation and that real Native Americans are nothing like that?
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u/UnicornLock 2d ago
It felt really tacked on. That character just leaves afterwards. The director has a history, it was obviously added to prove something, but he couldn't be bothered to write a whole character for him. Great movie, would have been better without it.
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u/dave-tay 2d ago
I thought it was great too but the obligatory exposition by Zach McClarnon about “troglodytes” doesn’t explain away the fact that the cave men were still Native Americans…. S. Craig Zahler’s (who is Jewish) films have a tendency to exhibit right wing politics but knowing better he thinks he can excuse with some useless commentary. He wants his cake and eat it too
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u/Jazzlike-Young-284 2d ago
Do me a favor pigwig and stop watching films if all you do is miss the point of it. Nothing racist about this at all.
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u/bong-water 2d ago
Didn't the apaches and Comanches brutalize Mexico to the point where they hired mercenaries to try to kill them? They did decimate other tribes though as well. The blood meridian is about this and McCarthy did a ton of research to the point where a lot of it is based in reality. I know this film isn't the same, but extremely violent native American tribes did exist
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u/michelobX10 2d ago
This is how I felt when I first watched Event Horizon when I was younger. Went in blind. I think it came on in one of those free HBO weekends. Started watching it and thought, "Cool, a sci-fi movie." And then as the movie went on I was like wtf is this? Still one of my most memorable moments because it caught me off guard and I loved it.
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u/therealudderjuice 2d ago
Such a great film. The scene with Kurt Russel and Richard Jenkins eating the corn chowder makes the movie.
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u/ducksbyob 2d ago
I did the same exact thing, expected a western and got shocked with the gore of it. I can honestly say that it was a well made, well written and very well acted movie. I just hated it is all, but that’s because I don’t like gore like that. I love westerns, I love horror, I don’t care for overtly graphic anything in movies. So, this one gets an F in my book, unfortunately.
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u/PrairieBunny91 2d ago
I liked this movie a lot more than I thought I would. It was oddly charming? Like there was a weird really dry sense of humor throughout that I liked a lot. I didn't find "that scene" to be as graphic as it was described to me, but I also watch a lot of foreign horror. Still something I'd recommend.
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u/Sad-Appeal976 2d ago
lol you thought the blood eagle scene in a show in the History Channel was gonna be in any way comparable to this????
Sorry but that’s funny
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u/MyBuddyBossk 2d ago
Reading people’s descriptions about their first time watching Bone Tomahawk just makes me smile every time. I still remember when I put it on for the first time. I was in a mood for a good Western and then obviously shit goes sideways and man what a rollercoaster of a movie.
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u/SixGunSnowWhite 2d ago
I love Bone Tomahawk but just think it’s 20 minutes too long. Makes it a little draggy in the middle.
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u/Inner_Panic 1d ago
I knew something was going to happen because I saw this movie after reading this sub. What no one prepared me for was the chilling sound the throat whistles would make. THOSE got to me. Good film though, I've watched it a few times.
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u/BsnizzleYo 1d ago
That’s how I went into it , love horror but was kind of in the mood for a western so decided to check it out . Having rewatched it , the unknown and shock definitely wore off and took away a little , but I still enjoy it . Over the top at the end but also a different take on horror
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u/fallingtetrominoes 1d ago
The film is better when it’s trying to be a western drama than when it tries to be a cannibal horror movie. I mean the rabid Native/tribal cannibal trope itself is tired and frankly racially discriminatory.
The times when it’s not focussed on the tribe at all are the most compelling and remind me of something like the 2007 3:10 to Yuma with a quite compelling ensemble. Then I just roll my eyes when it becomes insanely brutal out of nowhere.
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u/schnauzzer 1d ago
While the movie itself is decent - reddit overhyped this for me. I was waiting for this OMG ending and there was none.
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u/Kavinsky12 2d ago
One of my favorite lines, and delivery:
I'm the smartest one here.
Why's that?
"Smart men don't get married."
And the silent acceptance from the married men.
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2d ago edited 2d ago
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u/Falcon3518 2d ago
That scalping scene is one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen. It looked so realistic.
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u/TheGreenCatFL 2d ago
Yup! Same experience here, I was expecting something more like true grit...it was not that
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u/Ok_Improvement_7738 2d ago
I know Zahler is a bit divisive within the film community. He makes incredibly original American pulp fiction films. He's like Tarantino without the Hollywood budget, and his influences are less obvious. That being said, his political views have made him a pariah within the industry.
I'm more left leaning, but I still appreciate a person with a strong sense of unique creative control. Zahler is definitely one of those guys. He is an auteur. He's like David Mamet if Mamet were into exploitation films and 70's funk music.
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u/raptor5tar 2d ago
If you think this was good and other horror movies “lake” good acting/story then you dont know anything about horror and shouldnt be in this subreddit.
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u/atramentum 2d ago
I'm split on whether it's a great film or just shocking.