Netflix’s new Western series American Primeval has quickly become one of the platform’s biggest hits of the moment, holding the number one spot on the streamer for several days before being dethroned by another bloodbath, WWE Monday Night Raw. Written by The Revenant screenwriter Mark L. Smith and directed by Deepwater Horizon’s Peter Berg, the series unflinchingly plunges viewers into the brutally violent world of the American West circa 1857, a time frequently mythologized and often toned down by Hollywood.
While many westerns offer a more sanitized view of 19th Century frontier life, others have been willing to go there before American Primeval hit the scene. One of the best examples from recent years can even be found on the same platform, just a click away after the final episode: 2015’s Bone Tomahawk. Written and directed by S. Craig Zahler in his directorial debut, the film is more sparing in its use of violence than American Primeval, but when it goes there, it’s some of the most gruesome and squirm-inducing violence ever depicted on screen.

Release Date

October 23, 2015

Runtime

132 minutes

‘Bone Tomahawk’s Weird West

Bone Tomahawk opens with two lowlifes, Purvis (David Arquette) and Buddy (horror legend Sid Haig), having just murdered and pillaged a camp, stumbling upon an imposing Native American burial site strewn with human bones. Stomping across the graves without fear, Buddy is quickly killed by an arrow shot from somewhere nearby, and Purvis narrowly escapes a similar fate.
Purvis later arrives in the nearby frontier town of Bright Hope wearing a dead man’s clothes, where he buries his loot and assumes a false identity. He’s quickly sniffed out by the local sheriff, Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell, sporting one of his many manly mustaches) and his kindhearted deputy Chicory (Richard Jenkins), and shot when he tries to escape. Hunt sends a cocky local gunslinger named John Brooder (Matthew Fox) to fetch the town doctor to treat Purvis’s wounds, but he instead brings the doctor’s daughter Samantha (Lili Simmons) when the doctor is unavailable. Samantha leaves her husband Arthur (Patrick Wilson) at home to nurse his broken leg and goes to tend to the injured man.
The next day, both Purvis and Samantha have gone missing, along with Deputy Nick (Evan Jonigkeit), who was guarding the prisoner. Evidence points to the three being taken by a tribe of cannibalistic Natives whose isolation and strange way of life marks them as outsiders from the other Native communities. Hunt, Chicory, and Brooder decide to head out to the cannibal’s turf to rescue the captives, joined by Arthur, who refuses to stay behind despite his injury. The four men head out into the frontier, encountering obstacles both human and natural, before facing down their terrifying foes.

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‘Bone Tomahawk’s Use of Violence

While Bone Tomahawk is often held up as an example of a “horror western,” Zahler has said that he thought of the script as a more straightforward western with an especially brutal storyline. The film takes its time getting to the gory stuff, and, in fact, for long stretches, isn’t violent at all. As with his subsequent films Brawl in Cell Block 99 and Dragged Across Concrete, Zahler isn’t afraid to let his films stretch out, and Bone Tomahawk is as much a laid-back character piece as it is a violent horror film.
Zahler has a real flair for language, and Bone Tomahawk’s dialogue is as colorful and tersely poetic as anything in Deadwood or one of Tarantino’s western forays. The film’s languid pacing allows the audience to travel alongside the four men, getting to know them as characters through their various means of surviving in the wilderness. Brooder is coolly pragmatic and detached, more than willing to shoot a stranger dead rather than risk getting robbed or killed. Arthur is stubborn and determined, refusing to sit back and let other men rescue his wife even as his leg forces him to move at a snail’s pace. Chicory seems almost too kind for this harsh world, but his gentleness provides a welcome dose of hope in a grim situation.

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Violence does eventually come, often erupting almost out of nowhere, shattering the relative calm of the rest of the film. One sequence, after Hunt and Chicory are captured, and the cannibals select their first victim, is so disturbing that it’s likely to sear into the memory of even the most seasoned gorehounds. (But maybe those who had to sit through that scene in American Primeval will be ready for it.) Zahler knows that the violence is far more effective when used sparingly, and these moments make Bone Tomahawk far more gruesome than other films with wall-to-wall gore. He doesn’t give the audience many answers about the cannibals’ way of life, but the glimpses that he does provide point to something deeply unsettling.
There’s an argument to be made that Bone Tomahawk plays into the “savage native” stereotypes that go back to the very founding of the western genre, but Zahler draws a distinction between other Native nations and the cannibals, who are considered almost sub-human. The film’s one Native character, known as The Professor (Zahn McClarnon), tells the posse that the cannibals are shunned even by the other Natives in the area. This still certainly causes some discomfort watching the film from a modern perspective, but it remains a highly effective western story nonetheless.
Bone Tomahawk will likely be mostly remembered for its moments of violence, but like most good westerns, it’s also a story of community, of people putting aside their differences and risking their lives for a common goal. Life in the Old West is frequently depicted as lawless and brutal, and it often was. Thankfully, there were decent folk like Sheriff Hunt and Deputy Chicory to balance things out.