Kurt Russell’s 132-Minute Modern Western Epic Shoots Onto New Streaming Home

The Western genre has always stood as one that doesn’t need to be combined with any other category to be effective, but when it is mixed with something else, like horror, the results can be spectacular. Case in point: 1999’s Ravenous, which expertly blends the two genres together to create a dark survival thriller that captivated audiences. However, in 2015, another movie came along to surpass it, as the film has easily become the best Western horror ever made.

Kurt Russell Stars in a 91%-Rated Legendary Western Horror Movie

Hitting theaters in the midst of spooky season on Oct. 23, 2015, the modern Western horror cult favorite stars Kurt Russell and was written and directed by S. Craig Zahler. Serving as his first feature, it was a stunning debut for the filmmaker, who would go on to make critical darlings like Brawl in Cell Block 99, and will direct Gerard Butler in the upcoming action thriller, Empire City.

Also starring Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox (who started to step away from acting after it was shot), Richard Jenkins, David Arquette, and Sid Haig, to name a few, the film in question is, of course, Bone Tomahawk. Clocking in at 132 minutes, it sees Russell play Sheriff Franklin Hunt, the lawman of a tiny frontier town named Bright Hope. Following the arrival of a mysterious drifter, people begin to go missing, including the wife of local rancher Arthur O’Dwyer (Wilson).

Saddling up with a gimp O’Dwyer, his old deputy (Jenkins), and a cocky gunslinger (Fox), Hunt and company go looking for the source of the disappearances, only to find a group of cave-dwelling cannibals. Not exactly the kind of thing you’d expect to see in a Western, which means Bone Tomahawk turns into a brutal horror movie as the group find themselves fighting to survive against an enemy that will stop at nothing to protect their way of life. It may take a while to get there, but by establishing itself as a transitional Old West movie, when the horror does come, it’s much more effective.

The majority of critics (and Stephen King) agree, as Bone Tomahawk holds a Certified Fresh rating of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, with many highlighting one scene in particular as extremely hard to watch. If you’ve seen the movie, then you know the one since it’s become iconic to the film, but if not, let’s just say that it’s best to not watch on a full stomach if you’re sensitive to gore.

‘Bone Tomahawk’ Lands New Free Streaming Home

Currently available to watch behind a paywall on AMC+, those that don’t have a subscription to the streaming service are in luck, as Bone Tomahawk will be making its way back to free streaming on Sept. 1. The Western horror is being added to Tubi as part of their September lineup, along with a host of other great movies like Johnny Depp’s Sleepy Hollow, Brendan Frasier’s The Mummy, and the criminally overlooked 1997 horror sci-fi gem, Cube.

Unfortunately, Zahler never returned to the world of Bone Tomahawk even though he had ideas for a sequel and the film’s ending does leave some room for another story. Still, we’re just ecstatic that the Western horror got made in the first place, so it’s best to just take what you can get and enjoy it in all its violent glory.

Release Date

October 23, 2015

Runtime

132 minutes