Extreme violence peppered in between long bouts of boredom.
Bone Tomahawk isn't (just) a western horror flick. It's a story of the times, of love, of heroism and bravery, of accountability, of war, of hatred, of boredom and misery. It's masterfully written and shot.
Set in the 1890s, the plot follows of a group of townspeople on a rescue mission for three of their own who were kidnapped in the night by Native Americans (aptly called "troglodytes" in the film—nobody used Native American back then!).
Life is pretty rough in the 1890s, especially out west. They make soup that gets mistaken as tea and called disgusting, lack modern medicine (besides that sweet, sweet opium tincture), wear long sleeve clothes everywhere, and occasionally have to deal with cannibalistic troglodytes raiding their horse stables and kidnapping their people. This roughness, combined with the pervasive boredom that fills every room in Bright Hope, is a core reason why they decide to embark on the rescue mission: there's simply nothing else to do. What's worse, sitting around in a dusty, dark bar paying 10 cents for the same few shitty piano songs to be played by a drunk or making a five-day journey in three with the risk of never returning. Those with excitement in their lives may say the former, but those lacking in excitement will happily choose the latter, especially if it brings back memories of the war or gives another chance at killing some more troglodytes (shoutout Brooder).
Bright Hope's sense of community also compels the men to go. Their camaraderie, with Hunt at the helm, is quickly established through the first name addressing and obvious familiarity with one another and their backgrounds, existing conflits or not. Hunt feels both a personal (on behalf of his friend and community) and professional (as the lawman of the town) obligation to avenge his fellow townspeople, one strong enough to reject The Professor's assertion that they will die at the hands of these people:
Hunt: You'll take us to them?
Prof: I won't. Hunt: 'Cause you're an Indian? Prof: Because I don't want to get killed. ...
Prof: You'll get killed if you enter their territory.
...
Hunt: How many of 'em you think there are?
Prof: It won't matter, you have no chance against any number of them.
Hunt hears and understands the Professor's words, accepts them into his Sheriff-in-a-western-town-hardened soul, and proceeds to say "[fuck it, ]I'm riding out with Mr. O'Dwyer because there isn't a choice for either of us", leading us to the third reason they go: honor.
These are honorable men. They take responsibility for their actions and positions: Hunt for being sheriff, Chicory for being deputy, Brooder for getting the wife involved, and Arthur for going after his wife despite his leg being broken. The initiative is as strong amongst all of them; no one shirks from the mission despite the Professor's stern warnings. Is this common for that day and age? Or just the west? Or were the kidnapees just lucky and the troglodytes unlucky in the town and people they chose to kidnap from? I suppose a combination of all three. I struggle to imagine an equivalent situation happening now, albeit we have SWAT teams and robots to do the job.
The film isn't littered with Hunt and co. massacring their way through hundreds of vicious Indians to save the damsels in distress locked in the teepee tower, it's raw, unfiltered, and in quick spurts with long periods of boredom in between to really drive in what life is like. And even those quick spurts aren't supplemented with music or nauseating cutscenes: they're barebones, letting the brutality of the environment and people in it drive the intensity of the scene. The lack of a music is a central feature, not a bug, of the film; it enhances the violence because the viewer is focused entirely on the grotesque sights and squishy sounds (hopefully not smells!) of the kill.
Tension remains in the air throughout. From not knowing where the troglodytes are (i.e., they could be even closer than expected) to meeting and killing potential raiders in the desert, the viewer is on edge while the party tires over the multi-day journey.
The book feels like a digital companion to McCarthy's Blood Meridian. A few select quotes for comparison (for those who have watched, but haven't read; I'm trusting quotes from others on the internet as I don't have a readily available copy):
It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.
The white man uncocked the revolver and placed it on the ground before him. Two of the others came back to the fire and stood uneasily. Jackson sat with his legs crossed. One hand lay in his lap and the other was outstretched on his knee holding a slender black cigarillo. The nearest man to him was Tobin and when the black stepped out of the darkness bearing the bowieknife in both hands like some instrument of ceremony Tobin started to rise. The white man looked up drunkenly and the black stepped forward and with a single stroke swapt off his head.
Two thick ropes of dark blood and two slender rose like snakes from the stump of his neck and arched hissing into the fire. The head rolled to the left and came to rest at the expriest's feet where it lay with eyes aghast. Tobin jerked his foot away and rose and stepped back. The fire steamed and blackened and a gray cloud of smoke rose and the columnar arches of blood slowly subsided until just the neck bubbled gently like a stew and then that too was stilled. He was sat as before save headless, drenched in blood, the cigarillo still between his fingers, leaning toward the dark and smoking grotto in the flames where his life had gone.
If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind, would he not have done so by now?
They found the lost scouts hanging head downward from the limbs of a fireblacked paloverde tree. They were skewered through the cords of their heels with sharpened shuttles of green wood and they hung gray and naked above the dead ashes of the coals where they’d been roasted until their heads had charred and the brains bubbled in the skulls and steam sang from their noseholes. Their tongues were drawn out and held with sharpened sticks thrust through them and their torsos were sliced open with flints until the entrails hung down on their chests…
I found the contrast of the troglodytes quite interesting. They get dissed on for purported lack of intelligence by the Professor during the initial town meeting:
One that doesn't have a language. Cave dwellers.
They're a spoiled bloodline of inbred animals who rape and eat their own mothers.
Yet they show decent smarts (more than I would expect given the Professor's unflattering description) in the form of being able to:
And are a formidable foe thanks to their camouflage, hunting skills, and home field advantage in the Valley of the Starving Men.
Is this a piece of social commentary? How people deemed savage and barbaric are actually much smarter than they appear?
From Reddit:
think the imprisonment can be explained by thinking about how we imprison cattle or any other animal food source. They were cannibals, so you want to keep your food alive until you can eat it, especially, when you don’t have a freezer.
[reply to above] Yeah, kind of their equivalent of a refrigerator.
[reply to above] yep, and opening the scalp is like opening a can's lid
[reply to above] Cracking open the boys with a cold one
Loved how sudden and not-telegraphed all of the encounters with the troglodytes were. Like, the heroes round a corner and get shot in the arm by an arrow. There was no loud fanfare to these climactic face-offs. Something about how close and quick they were really unnerved me. Because you realize they can happen at any time, without the usual horror movie tropes of a musical crescendo or whatever.