Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Episode 178, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Today, we hit another request. This one came through our Facebook page from Addison. Phone Tomahawk from twenty fifteen, starring our, favorite Kurt Russell. You like Kurt Russell, Craig?

Craig:  I do like Kurt Russell. I think what what do the kids say today? He’s a snack.

Todd:  You think you could say that in a more sultry voice? I, I I didn’t quite I don’t think

Craig:  you made your point clear enough. No. I do like Kurt Russell.

Clip:  He’s a he’s a cool guy.

Todd:  Yeah. Me too. I’ve always loved him. Maybe not as much as you, but I’ve always loved him. Alright. So we were very happy to review Boom Tomahawk. I hadn’t actually heard of this one before. It it’s only been, four years since it came out.  Directed by s Craig Zahler. Now s Craig Zahler is also known for doing, puppet master, the littlest reich. Yeah. He did that one after Bone Tomahawk. Usually, those one those ones come first. Yeah. Usually. But I think this guy is actually more prolific than his IMDB page would say.  He’s written, like, over 40 screenplays. He’s several novels that have been published. It just so happens that most of the stuff that he’s written has not, come to fruition in production. A lot of it’s been optioned by a list actors. He likes to joke that most of the a list has passed through a lot of his scripts in Hollywood, but for one reason or another, things just fall through. So he wrote this one with the intention of directing it. He put a team together, wrote this, clearly got a lot of a list actors interested because we have quite a few names in this one.

Craig:  Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Todd:  And, and I really enjoyed watching this movie. It is two hours and twelve minutes, which at first gave me pause.

Craig:  Me too.

Todd:  Craig and I don’t like to watch long movies. But in this case, I thought it really worked because, it was it was almost like sitting down to watch a John Wayne western. It it’s a western, by the way. A western.

Craig:  It definitely is. I would actually say that it’s more of a western than it is a horror movie. I I don’t know. I’m I feel a little bamboozled, Addison.

Todd:  Thanks a lot, Addison.

Craig:  No. I mean, it it certainly has horror elements. But in the first ten minutes and the last twenty minutes of, the movie, beyond that, it’s really more of a western. And it is it is good. And like you, you know, I saw two hours and twelve minutes or whatever it is, and I was like, oh, it’s so long. But I it didn’t feel really that long. But I did read in the trivia. It said something along the lines of the final film is wholly representative of the first draft of the script.  And I thought, yep, kinda seems like it. Like, I I I kinda felt like they could have trimmed it by about a half an hour.

Todd:  Really?

Craig:  And it yeah. I mean, not Well, they could have. Because anything that was going on was, you know, terrible or or super boring, but I didn’t necessarily need big long conversations about the flea circus. Actually, the flea circus was kinda one of the sweeter moments of the movie. But there were there were other, you know, conversations and stuff that went on that I’m like, this would have been a really good deleted scene.

Todd:  Something to go back and look at later.

Craig:  Right. And and and and I’m I’m being harsh. It it wasn’t bad. Nothing in it. Well, there were a couple of cringey acting moments, I thought. Just a couple. Overall, I thought it was it was well done. I thought that it could have been cut a little bit for time, but overall, I understand why it was recommended.  I don’t think it was a bad movie. I think there was a lot of talent that went into this, and so you’ll see as we go through it. I’m not gonna be super critical because I I really did end up enjoying it. And it didn’t feel super long, and it didn’t feel like a waste of my time. So, I’m not gonna give it too much crap for for being a little bit long.

Todd:  Well, I’m just gonna disagree with you just a little bit. I mean, I I understand the points you’re making, and I see what you’re making. But, this would have been a very different film if it had been cut down and trimmed to the bare minimum. Yeah. It would have been very much like many horror films we see, but, you know, actually, this was addressed by the in something I read. I don’t know. I was reading somewhere online about this, and the writer director, s Craig Zahler, said that, there were distributors and and money people who wanted him to do a ninety minute version of this, you know. And he said, I didn’t I wasn’t interested in doing a ninety minute version filled with heavy metal, even though I’m a heavy metal fan.  You know? He he wanted a a western, a western with horror elements, a horror western. And I felt like watching this, I was getting a little bit of an Eli Roth vibe. I’m thinking of maybe the first Hostel where quite a bit of story goes by before you get to the horror elements. And then suddenly, bam, at the end, you know, the last thirty minutes is super brutal and super shocking.

Craig:  That’s true.

Todd:  I felt like that was this movie a little bit. But also, I just I enjoy I don’t know. I just really enjoy westerns Todd. And I felt like this one at its core was so classic western. In fact, some of the characters in here are really throwbacks to particular characters in the John Wayne westerns. I’m thinking specifically of of Rio Bravo, the, character that who’s the guy? Chicory.

Craig:  Oh, yeah. He was great. Richard Jenkins played him. Yeah. He was he’s been oh, he’s been in a bazillion things, but he played the dad in the American remake, Let Me In. He was also in Cabin in the Woods. He was one of the two scientists. Very recognizable.  And and I I liked him a lot.

Todd:  He was good and he was sweet. And he did the the little, flea circus bit that you’re talking about.

Clip:  I’ve been thinking a lot about that flea circus. You were the one that come into Bright Hope. Well, I don’t know what your opinion is, but, my wife said it was all a trick. You know, even when those brothers give us those magnifying glasses and we we saw those fleas pull that little stagecoach right into the depot, roll those cannons, those tiny little cannons onto the battlefield. She said, those fleas are dead. They’re just glued to some mechanical contraption, you know, that, it moves on its own like a a time piece or a wind up. Still, I thought it was real. And I told her, I said, don’t talk so loud.  The the performers will hear you.

Todd:  You know, he really called back, a guy named Walter Brennan, who was almost like a sidekick to John Wayne and probably, like, about a dozen John Wayne movies in the same way that he played this sort of

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  I wanna say sidekick, but, you know, he’s the guy that makes Kurt Russell look really good. Yet, he’s just friendly, and he’s there, and he’s amiable and affable. And he’s there to kinda lighten the mood a little bit, but also to kinda keep everybody else happy and going and kinda push.

Craig:  Mhmm.

Todd:  And and very much like Walter Brennan was in those old western movies who played more of, like, a hic ish character in those. But but but, you know, it was it’s the same kind of feel, and I thought that that buddiness really worked well.

Craig:  Oh, yeah.

Todd:  How Kurt Russell, sometimes you even forget he’s there, and it’s okay. You know? Because he when he is there, he’s a strong, commanding sheriff. It just Mhmm. Again, sort of in the same way that John Wayne was. He didn’t have to be out front and boisterous. He just was a presence when he was on screen that were always reminded you, oh, yeah. This guy’s still in charge.

Craig:  Well, it was it was cute. You know? Like, Kurt Russell, like you said, he plays kinda the hard nosed sheriff. And and that’s not to say that he’s unfeeling or unsympathetic. He’s not, you know. He is a a sympathetic character and and he does have emotion. But it’s almost like Chicory is kind of like the little sympathetic simple angel on his shoulder.

Todd:  Oh, there you go. That’s a good way of putting it.

Craig:  It’s it’s really cute. Chicory is an older guy, you know, Sheriff Hunt, Kurt Russell refers to him very affectionately as old man, you know, most of the time. And

Todd:  And he’s the backup deputy.

Craig:  Yeah. He’s the backup deputy, but he’s so devoted to his duty. You know? And, like, it was really cute. I liked him a lot, and and I liked that dynamic between the two of them. In fact, I thought that the dynamic between all of the characters was really endearing. Even some of the characters who weren’t on their own particularly endearing. I I’m thinking specifically of the character played by Matthew Fox, Brooder.

Todd:  Mhmm. He

Craig:  was kind of a dick.

Todd:  But Yeah. He was.

Craig:  Within the context of this group of guys, he played a part, you know? Like like, they were a a part of a gang, you know? Like, they needed one kind of jerky kind of guy. But but he also served a purpose. He was also really efficient. You know, he was a sharpshooter, and he got stuff done. And and so he served his purpose. I I thought that the chemistry between the characters was really good.

Todd:  Yeah. The balance is really quite Todd, especially that posse that eventually goes out because you have Kurt Russell who’s the law. Mhmm. He’s the one who’s gonna lead the group, but also with a certain sense of right and wrong. Chicory, like you said, is like the angel on his shoulder, and he’s more the moral center of the group, and he’s the one constantly sort of reminding people what’s right.

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  And it’s interesting because you really, you wonder early on, like, why is this guy here? Like, he’s gonna be the first to go. Alright. Because he’s got a limp, he’s older and all that, but he has a role to play and it’s not physical. It’s to be that guy. And then, like you said

Craig:  But but hold up. He’s not worthless either. You know, like No.

Clip:  No. No. No. No. No.

Craig:  He can pull his own when when this stuff starts to go down.

Todd:  He does, but that’s not immediately obvious, you know, when when they start out. Right? Right. Yeah. And and then, like you said, you’ve got Brooder who is the kind of cold blooded, chip on his shoulder guy, and he’s more of the amoral type. And, you know, that’s sort of an acknowledgment of the whole Man From Nowhere trope that you find. This isn’t a Man From Nowhere movie, but, you know, in restaurants, you have this sense that, in order to get justice in the West, you have to do things that are offensive to the sensibilities of the populace, you know? Yeah. You have to cross the line because the bad guys are willing to cross the line. Right.  So you gotta have somebody who’s willing to cross the line, but, at the end, like, the movie ends up holding them accountable for it. You know? Yeah. In in the man from nowhere trope, the the the guy has to ride off into the sunset. You know? He can’t linger in the town. He can’t be one of them. He ends up, dying in the movie. He’s not the only one, but, he’s one of the first ultimately to go, I think. So yeah.  It’s it’s really interesting. And then you have that dynamic of the guy who shouldn’t be with the group, but he’s obligated to be there. Right? And he’s gonna slow them down, and he’s gonna actually be kind of a problem to at least to their to their end and their goal, but nobody is going to tell them not to be there. And that is the whole reason for their going off is the husband of, a woman named Samantha, Arthur. And so yes. We’ve got Arthur. We have the sheriff. We have Brooder, and we have Chicory who go off on this adventure.  But, of course, a good deal of the movie has to lead up to that.

Craig:  Right. Honestly, you know, this is one of the longer movies that we have reviewed in a while. And I took significantly fewer notes than I usually take because really not all that much happens. You could summarize the plot of this movie in sixty seconds.

Todd:  Like most westerns, by the way.

Craig:  Well, and and that may be, you know, I I I’ve seen some modern westerns. I grew up in a rural area. My family were country folk and they were big into westerns. I never really got into it, so I haven’t seen a lot of them. I’ve seen some more of the modern ones, but and you and I watched Ravenous and reviewed it, and and I really enjoyed that. But I don’t maybe know as many of the tropes as you do when it comes to westerns. But the way that the movie starts out is you’ve got these two guys and they’re they’re they’re bandits. You’ve got Purvis, who’s played by David Arquette, who is also in Ravenous, by the way, and, Buddy, who’s played by Sid Haig, who keeps popping up in all these movies that we review.

Todd:  Just last week.

Craig:  Yeah. I I guess their deal is that they are robbers and with no moral compass. Like, they will just kill people in their sleep and then rob them of whatever they have on them. And that’s where it opens. They have killed these guys, these these sleeping men and

Todd:  And, you know, this is a good way to open this movie with these two guys. Because, of course, these guys are gonna stumble upon the main bad thing, but Right. These guys really lay out for us the danger. Right? Yeah. That these other characters are going to face throughout the whole movie. And that is while you’re on this trek across the Old West, you fall asleep or you go on this Craig. You know, it’s a scary place out there, and there are people just like this who will come up to you in your sleep and just kill you and take your stuff.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  And so I thought it was really actually pretty clever to start out this movie with two of these characters getting us on their side and their point of view and even humanizing them in a way. I mean, they’re affable with each other. They’re very nonchalant about what they’re doing.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  I think it’s important because westerns are a little tricky territory to delve into nowadays, because a lot of our westerns in the past were about the Indians. Uh-huh. It’s the white man against the Indians, and the Indians are the bad guy, and they’re savage, and they’re gonna come, and they’re gonna steal your women, and they’re gonna kill people. And so when they’re going out across the West, that’s the danger. Right? These other people. And they’ve been so demonized in film that it’s very clear that the director here has taken great lengths to to not be that kind of movie. And so by having these two white guys be the brigands that are out there, and very nonchalantly, just like the guy next door, having these conversations with each other, doing their thing, except their thing is coming up to people in the middle of their sleep sleep, cutting their throats, you know, shooting them in the head and taking all their stuff and then wandering off to the next thing. I thought it was really smart, you know, to do this.

Craig:  Yeah. And both of these guys I mean, David Arquette and Sid Craig are both I just like them both so much,

Todd:  you know.

Craig:  They’re just real they’re both really charismatic and and they play Todd West vagabonds really well. They make slitting throats and shooting people in the head amusing.

Clip:  There are 16 major veins in the neck, and you have to cut through them all. Alright. 16. My uncle had an acquaintance with a man who used to be a doctor, and that’s what he said.

Craig:  And so I was thinking that they were gonna be around.

Clip:  Do you hear that?  This one’s a gust. That’s a real musical gust. And? It’s ominous. This is not the time for womanly imaginings. Go.

Craig:  And they come across you know, it’s all desert and mountainous, and they come across this area where they start seeing at first animal skulls, like, mounted in rocks and then eventually human skulls and then what appears to be what looks like an Indian burial ground, like a smaller version of what you see in Pet Sematary, you know, like mounded rocks and those types of things. They’re hearing these weird howls and things and eventually, buddy Sid Craig is like, well, if you’re out there, come and get us. And then he just immediately gets shot right in the throat with, an arrow, and he’s dead. And, Purvis, David Arquette, takes off and then it cuts to eleven days later and we are in the lovely small western town of Bright Hope. Looks very clean and new. And this is where, you know, in the next ten minutes we are introduced to all of our characters. And the first one we’re introduced to is somebody you’ve already mentioned, Arthur, who is played by Patrick Wilson who’s been in a bazillion things. Look him up if you don’t know.  He’s been in a million things. What we learn about him is that he’s this young up and coming guy. He tells the sad story about how he was working his way up in this I don’t know what it was. Was it mining? Was it farming?

Todd:  I’m not sure either.

Craig:  I don’t know. I’m not sure what it was, but he was, you know, he was a a low guy on the totem pole, but he had just worked his way up to the point where he was gonna be, like, supervisor or something. But then he he broke his leg.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Now, the the group that he was working with has moved on and has taken with them most of the men of the town. So the town is very sleepy right now. It’s mostly wives and families of this crew or whatever it is that has moved on to do other work. But he’s very disappointed because he’s lost his opportunity or whatever. But luckily, to ease his disappointment, he has a smoking hot wife named Samantha played by Lily Simmons. And she, takes care of him and Hey. Or always the one. But she’s also, like, I don’t know.  She’s

Todd:  The town doctor or at least the doctor that’s available right now.

Craig:  The or a nurse or an aide or something. You know, she’s got medical expertise. And then we go to the town pub where we meet Brooder whose name is very fitting because he’s kind of this broody guy played by Matthew Fox from lost and lots of other things. And there are just so many pop up people in this. Like there’s a piano player in the bar played by James Tolkien, who was the principal in the back to the future movies. Like I recognized him immediately. And then Chicory who is we’ve already talked about, and Sheriff Hunt, the Kurt Russell, and and, you know, as much as this is a western and a horror movie eventually, in these first twenty minutes, I was thinking, is this a comedy? There is quite a bit of humor and Chicory Richard Jenkins is really funny, but in hindsight, it just seems very natural. It doesn’t seem like, oh, hardy har slapstick comedy.  It just seems like this is the kind of guy he

Todd:  is. Yeah.

Craig:  Chicory is just kinda like the the down home folksy kinda guy. Yep. Like, he seems simple. And it almost seems like the sheriff is kind of humoring him

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  By allowing him to be the backup deputy. But in the end, he’s not.

Todd:  He’s pretty deep.

Craig:  Yeah. I mean, he he’s a good guy and he’s been through a lot and he’s actually very capable, you know. Like, as it turns out, he has medical experience from the military. He has military experience. You know, it’s just these very subtle things but that they make a point of showing that, you know, he visits his wife’s grave every day and he brings her flowers and he talks to her. And while it may seem a little bit simple, it’s also just very sweet and very endearing. To me, he was the most endearing character

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  In the whole movie. For sure. And you’re just kind of in love with him by the end. Like, he’s like your grandpa who you would never expect to be so wise and and so experienced and and so capable. And, Richard Jenkins did a really great job with that.

Todd:  I agree.

Craig:  And that’s pretty much it, you know. So we meet all these people and then Purvis shows up in town, which kind of sets up the events that lead to, you know, the journey of the movie.

Todd:  Yeah. He, he basically is seen by Chicory, I think. No. No. No. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.  By Chicory Outside the town burying his bags. And so and then he comes in and has a drink at the bar. And, Chicory comes back and says, you know, sheriff, there’s a mysterious stranger coming to town. And Kurt Russell’s like, alright. Well, I guess we’d better go check it out. And so they go to the bar. And Kurt Russell’s pretty no nonsense. I mean, you know, I think that this really sets him up as a strong, clever guy, his first confrontation with this man.  Because, you know, on the face of it, it’s just a guy who wandered in wanting a drink, but, you know, Chicory has seen the suspicious thing. So he’s gonna push him a little bit, and pretty soon he ends up shooting him in the leg, and, dragging him off to the locker because he suspects something’s something’s weird about him. So he’s taken to the jail, and they call in Arthur’s wife, Samantha, to

Craig:  help him decide. They call they call for the doctor first, but the doctor’s drunk.

Todd:  Oh, right.

Craig:  So then they have to get Samantha, who has just had a very steamy sex scene with her husband. But, apparently, she’s ready to go now.

Todd:  Well and her husband’s pretty laid up. He has, well, in more ways than one.

Craig:  Yeah. Right.

Todd:  But he got injured. His leg, broken. Maybe his shin broken or something Yeah. Yeah. During, you know, his previous thing. And so he’s clearly and it they make very great pains to show the pain that he’s in, with his leg. So she’s tended to his leg, and she’s gonna go and remove the bullet from this other leg. And they call in the regular deputy, who’s a young guy who doesn’t end up being on the screen for too long.

Craig:  Nick. Yeah.

Todd:  They ask Nick to watch her and their their prisoner, who is out from tincture of opium. She’s given him a little spoonful of this stuff in order to, calm him down for their surgery. So, he’s more or less out. And so they decide that they can walk out. There’s a stable hand, who goes out to see some horses and gets immediately slaughtered. And the horses are missing, and so the guy who owns the horses comes in to the sheriff and tells the sheriff, hey, these horses are missing. It’s almost morning time by now, I think.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  And they investigate the horses, and they do see that the horses are missing. They do see that this guy’s been killed. They’re not sure if it’s by an animal or what. And then somebody comes and runs down and says that the whole sheriff’s office is empty.

Craig:  Empty.

Todd:  And they go there, and they find that the girl is missing, and the prisoner is missing.

Clip:  And Yeah.

Todd:  Yep. And then there’s a arrow, stuck in the wall. Kind of a strange arrow. The Kurt Russell

Clip:  Yeah.

Todd:  Picks up the arrow and looks at it and says, you know, I’m not really sure what Indians these these might be, so we’re gonna get our town expert on that, who is a Native American.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Todd:  And so, again, like, this was a really cool part of the movie. And I and, like I said, it was almost a little too obvious how the great pains they were taking to make sure this movie is not too racist. Yeah. What they’re really trying to do is set up from the beginning that the bad guys here are not Indians. And so they all meet up in the bar. It’s just everybody we’ve seen so far pretty much gathers together, and they call in this guy. And, he looks at it, and he knows exactly what this is.

Clip:  Only one group that hunts with this. Who? They don’t have a name. What kind of tribe doesn’t have a name? One that doesn’t have a language. Cave dwellers. You know where they are? I have a general idea. You’ll take us to them? I won’t. Because you’re an Indian? Because I don’t wanna get killed.  You’re afraid

Craig:  of your own kind?

Clip:  They’re not my kind. They’re a spoiled bloodline of inbred animals that Craig beneath their own mothers.  Well, what are they? Troglodytes. What do they look like?  Man like you would not distinguish them from Indians even though there’s something else entirely.

Todd:  Brooder, at some point here, when they decide they’re all gonna ride out and find these guys and rescue Samantha, Brooder says he wants to join the party too because he feels responsible. He’s the one who came to, get Samantha. Plus, I’ve killed more Indians than probably anybody else in this room. And the native American guy turns him and says, well, that’s a

Craig:  a strange brag or something like that. Yeah.

Todd:  There’s there’s a little bit of that back and forth just to let us know. By the way, the bad guys in this are not Native Americans. In fact, that’s all we really see of Native Americans for the rest of this film.

Craig:  I mean I mean, they are, but they’re they’re also other. You know? Like, yes, they are Native Americans, but they’re not your typical you know, they’re bad. You know? Like

Todd:  They’re truce.

Craig:  Just as in, you know, the the guys from the Hills Have Eyes are white guys, but, you know, like, they’re not just representative of Caucasian people. You know what I mean? Like Yeah. Of course. That’s I that’s what I felt like.

Todd:  I mean,

Craig:  that’s basically what it is. I mean Mhmm. They are kind of the hills have eyes kind of Native Americans. They’re cave dwellers and cannibals.

Todd:  But almost from, like, another time. Yeah. Like, they’ve had very little contact with civilization. They’ve got their own entirely own thing going.

Craig:  Yeah. They’re nonverbal. Yeah. Right. Exactly. I wanted to mention we’re also introduced to the sheriff’s wife, Lorna, who’s played by Catherine Morris, who was the lead on the network television show Todd Case Forever. And you hardly see her at all, but I like her. So I wanted to give her a shout out.

Todd:  They have a nice little scene and a couple scenes between him and her. And it’s really nice that this movie takes great pains to show that relationship because it it raises the stakes a little bit about them leaving. And that was another thing that I was really struck with by this movie. I think more so than your stereotypical westerns tend to do, the women are not, like, shoved to the side or or they’re just prostitutes or they’re just kind of receding in the background in this hyper masculine story. The women are actually very much a part of this story, and not just because it’s a go get rescue the princess kinda way. Right. But you’re gonna see all of the women who care about these men. The fact that they’re leaving is a big deal to them, and they’re gonna be back there worrying.

Craig:  Well, and the and the men who are genuinely driven by their feelings for their Yes.

Todd:  Wives. And talk about it a lot Yeah. While they’re out on the trail. This is the subject of half of their conversation. Even, Chicory, who, like you said earlier, is grieving his dead wife, and it shows a scene of him taking the flowers to the grave. He talks about her out in on the road, and that’s just not something you typically see in these westerns, really.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  The women are more or less kind of forgotten. You know? Yes. So I thought that was a really nice touch here as well, and it really made this a little more relatable and just rounded out these characters so well and made you care more. And, you know, I I thought that that was a good reason why the first part of the movie could take so long for me. I was interested in these people. I was interested in their plight. I really got to know them. I really started to care about them.  And through means that I thought were quite interesting, I liked hearing these little stories and these little asides in the same way that kinda watching a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  You know, sometimes the dialogue is part of the enjoyment even though it doesn’t necessarily advance the plot any. It’s still kind of real what they’re doing, and it’s clever, and it’s cute, and it’s fun, and gets you to know these people a little more and care about them a little more.

Craig:  Yeah. I agree. And so everybody meets up in the bar. They talk about, you know, what they’re going to do and ultimately what’s decided. The sheriff says, I’m going to go, and Arthur is going to go because we have to. We have no other choice. Arthur because it’s his wife and the sheriff because he’s the sheriff. He’s the law.  He has to go. But Chicory says, no. I wanna go too. And he says, no, old man. You stay here. You you know, it’s almost kinda like a father son kinda deal. You you feel the connection between these two men. Chicory obviously respects the sheriff because of his authority, but it goes beyond that.  You know, you see that there is genuine affection between these guys, And and Chicory insists, and he is an older guy, but he insists, you know, Nick, the deputy is gone. This is what a backup deputy is for. Eventually, the sheriff concedes. And then Brooder says, I’m going Todd. I’ve killed more Indians than any of you combined, and it was me who took the wife there or whatever, and and so he’s gonna go Todd. So they’re the ones that are gonna go. I love there was this tiny moment that’s totally insignificant, totally could’ve been cut, but I’m glad it wasn’t where the mayor and his wife bar a gin.

Todd:  Another another great example of, of the woman, you know, the woman’s place in this. It’s hilarious.

Craig:  And the mayor’s wife obviously just speaks for him. I don’t think that the mayor had a single line. I don’t think he spoke a single word.

Todd:  Just at the very end when he asked how to spell troglodytes for the teledra. Right. Right. Right. And

Craig:  but, they burst in and the mayor’s wife was played by Sean Young who, Todd bless her, is just a washed up actress, and will just

Todd:  Take anything?

Craig:  Do anything that’s given to her. And her performance is just almost laughable. Like, it’s so silly. My favorite story about Sean Young, it has nothing to do with this movie, and anybody who’s in the movie trivia will probably already know this, but Sean Young was supposed to be in the first Michael Keaton Batman. So Sean Young was cast in that role, but there was a horse riding sequence. And when they were, filming that, she fell off the horse and she broke her leg or something, and and they replaced her with Kim Basinger. When Tim Burton said that he was gonna do a new Batman movie, Sean Young wanted to play Catwoman, and she dressed herself up in complete full Catwoman garb and went to the studio offices where Tim Burton was working Todd to try to lobby for this role. And Tim Burton literally hid under his desk until they were able to get her out of the building.  Yeah. And that’s my favorite Sean Young story. But anyway, she’s funny. And her husband who only has that one line is Jameson Newlander who was Alan Frog from the lost boys. He was the Craig brother who wasn’t Corey Feldman.

Todd:  I did not know that. Oh my gosh.

Craig:  Totally unimportant, but there you go. There’s your trivia for the day.

Todd:  Let’s be kind to Sean Young. She was Rachel in in Blade Runner, and she was quite a quite a powerhouse in that movie. So Oh,

Craig:  she was. Yeah.

Todd:  It was years ago.

Craig:  Early eighties, you know, her star was rising, and then it just fell, and she didn’t take it very well. But anyway alright. So they’re all gonna go out. Now okay. Two things. One, I think that it’s totally stupid that they took this maimed guy along with them. I understand why he would want to go. Arthur? Yeah.  I understand why he would want to go because it was his wife, but I don’t understand why anybody with any sense of logic would allow him to come on this treacherous journey. They barely know where they’re going, and they know the sheriff says that normally, this would be a five day horse ride, but we’re gonna try to do it in three days. And, like, he even makes a big deal of like, we gotta be really careful because we could kill these horses if we’re not careful. Like, it’s gonna be this treacherous journey. So why would they take him? I I I don’t know that I necessarily believe that. You know, ultimately, it’s important to the plot. Whatever.

Todd:  Well, they could have had they could have had a scene where they’re like, no. You can’t go. And he’d be like, it’s my wife. Damn it. And then it’s like, okay. Well, just don’t slow us down. Or, you know, they could have just acknowledged it from the beginning like they did. I feel like he was gonna go no matter what.

Craig:  I know. I get it. I mean, I understand for the purposes of the movie why he went. I just am saying logistically, it doesn’t make any sense.

Todd:  Logistically, it’s a bad idea.

Craig:  Yeah. Secondly, as I was watching the next at least hour of this movie, I kept thinking of that scene from Stand by Me where they’re sitting around the campfire and they’re talking about TV shows. And Will Wheaton says, you know that show Wagon Train? I mean, it’s a really good show, but they never get anywhere. They just keep on wagon training. Like, and that’s, like, seriously, like, at least at least an hour of this movie is just them journey. Sure. And it’s that’s not to say that it’s entirely boring. It’s not.  But, like, it’s just a long, long trek through the desert.

Todd:  But it’s not like stuff doesn’t happen on this trek.

Craig:  Fair. I’m alright. We’re fine.

Todd:  I was actually that. What thank you, Craig. I I was I was actually flashing back to what is not a western, but could very well be considered a western because it had a western style plot, which was our, the seven golden vampires. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, that’s almost the opposite of this movie. In that movie, they trek out, and the trek is made fairly meaningless. Right? It’s like Yeah.  They you don’t really see much of their treacherous journey. They have the vampires jump out at them once, and then, boom, they’re there at the town. Whereas, with this movie, it felt more like a real Western, you know? There this is about how hard it is to trek against the West, how lonely it can be. The journey is half of the problem. Right? And, especially because you got this guy with his leg. And, as had been set up in the very beginning of the movie, it’s not just these troglodytes at the end of the road that they have to worry about. It’s camping up at night. They’re gonna get besought by brigands.  And sure enough, they do. And there’s one really interesting I thought it was a great scene as well. And and this is where it feels very Tarantino esque, because Tarantino does a really good job of putting characters in situations that really show you who they are.

Craig:  Well, and morally ambiguous.

Todd:  Yes. Exactly. Mhmm. And in this one scene, they are waken up, by these two Mexican guys who approach the camp. And they didn’t announce themselves, which you learn pretty early on is is part of the, necessity when you’re out there. Right. But, they start talking and saying, oh, it’s alright, and they throw their gun away. And while Kurt Russell is going through this very typical sort of police procedure of getting them disarmed and having them slowly approach, suddenly, bang, bang, bang, Breuder shoots them both dead.  Mhmm. And he says, what are you doing? Why did you do that? And he said, they are not going to be good news for us in any way, shape, or form. You know? They’re scouts from a party that wants to ambush us. Yep. And Kurt Russell’s sort of like, yeah. Well, I mean, maybe. I kinda know that, but it’s okay. He’s he’s more like, I could have dealt with it.  And furthermore, I would like to have talked with to them. Right.

Craig:  And he’s like, no. And it really, really bothers Chicory.

Todd:  Oh, yeah.

Craig:  Like, so like, they move, you know, they they move to a different camp and don’t light a fire so that they’re less conspicuous or whatever. And while they’re laying there, Chicory is just clearly really upset about it, and he just keeps saying, you shouldn’t have done that. That was wrong. Plus, he’s he saw Chicory saw that one of them was wearing a crucifix, so he assumes that it was a preacher or a priest or something. And these are all religious men. He’s just really, really upset about it, but then they are ambushed. Mhmm. So I I don’t know.  And I I I I feel like the movie doesn’t tell you, but the implication that I got was that maybe and probably Brooder wasn’t wrong.

Todd:  No. Well, Brooder’s the one who gets, yeah, and Brooder’s the one who gets attacked. Who is it who has to shoot the guy off of Brooder or whatever?

Craig:  I don’t remember which one was.

Todd:  Wakes up and suddenly and Brooder’s being stabbed in the shoulder by this guy who’s standing over him. Right? And very reminiscent, actually, the first scene of the very first scene of the movie where a guy’s being held down by another guy and and and, you know, stabbed. So, yeah. So it turns out to be a very viable very real threat. And you’re right. No. I I that’s the conclusion I drew as well. But the problem with this is now all their horses are gone.  And I’m thinking, oh my gosh. Then it’s just they said it’s it’s a two day walk from there. And by this time, Arthur, who throughout the whole movie is kind of annoyingly holding them back, they are basically have a deal with him that, okay, we’re gonna keep walking, and you can he says, don’t worry. He says, I’ll walk while you sleep. They decide they’re gonna sleep during the day instead of the night.

Clip:  Mister O’Dwyer. That valley is at least the two day walk. I’ll try to match your pace. If I fall behind, I’ll catch up when you sleep.  You watch the Craig. There’s one bad fall, you lose that leg.

Todd:  Okay. No skin off our backs. We’re gonna lay out, you know, a path of four stones every now and then, while we go. And, you know, I don’t know, man. Like like, this whole western thing is always pretty fascinating to me. Here, you’ve got this land that stretches out to infinity. One one guy, I think, is it Chicory, who says as they’re riding early on, he says something like, well, I know the world’s supposed to be round, but this part sure don’t look it. Yeah.  Yeah.

Craig:  And then they show the horizon, and

Todd:  I mean,

Craig:  it’s just it’s just flat.

Todd:  I’m sure they have a compass with them, you know, so they know what the general direction they’re going, but I just don’t know how these guys navigate on foot. Let alone

Craig:  Oh, I know.

Todd:  Somebody can follow a trail after them, you know.

Craig:  Oh, I know. I I can’t imagine. I have no idea. I thought the same thing.

Todd:  He’s still kinda catching up with them every now and then as they go, but, his leg is getting worse. And at one point, they look at it, and they say, this this leg is is bad. Like, we’re gonna have to amputate. Chicory, like you said, who had experience doing this during the war, says he can do it. But Arthur Arthur says, no. I don’t want you to amputate my leg. And they’re like, okay. Well, I guess that’s your choice then.  You know, he says, just set it, and we’ll keep going. So

Craig:  They give him some opium, and they set the leg, and they take the rest, and he passes out. And and and Chicory tells him, you’re probably gonna sleep for a long time. And and all of the wild Chicory and the sheriff are, you know, having these asides. Like, is he gonna make it? And Chicory is always just very optimistic. Well, he’s got a shot.

Todd:  Like, probably

Craig:  not, but we’ll see.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And they go off without him. Eventually, they get there. Again, like you said, I can’t imagine. You know? I these people had to adapt to their circumstances, so I’m sure they were just better at this than you or I would be. They didn’t have GPS. They, I don’t know, navigated by the sun or the stars or I I don’t know. But they get there, and they find this valley that they were looking for. And when they get there, they start hearing those creepy howls again.  And, eventually, they get to the cave. And this is where it finally, to me, started to feel a little bit like a horror movie. I mean, it still felt very much like a western, but there were definite horror elements going in here. These people, whoever they are, they communicate non verbally and they communicate with these inhuman shrieks. Like, they’re so loud that it seems impossible that a human being could make this noise. And the men figure out immediately when they start hearing it, oh, these are, you know, they’ve spotted us. These are warnings. They’re communicating that we’re here.  And so they know that they’re there. You know, they get to the spot where there’s all the skulls and the rocks and stuff just like we saw in the beginning, and Brooder goes in first. They get to where they can spot the cave. And just and, like, they’re talking about what they’re gonna do, and then just out of nowhere, they’re ambushed. Mhmm. I I feel like the sheriff gets an arrow in the shoulder. Yep. I don’t remember if Chicory got anything at the oh, yeah.  An arrow shoots his hat off and takes off just a tiny little part of his scalp, like, it just missed him. Brooder doesn’t get shot, but when he goes to reach for his weapon, his arm gets chopped with a bone tomahawk. There you go. Nope. Because they have these they have these bone tomahawks, which are very effective.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And his arm gets about chopped off, and they kill a few of them. Brooder is, you know, significantly wounded and and he says

Clip:  Sublime me with dynamite, and don’t return until I’ve used it. I’m far too vain to ever live as a cripple.

Craig:  He ends up taking another one out. And there are a couple of moments throughout the movie. Like, there’s this moment. There’s one moment after they get ambushed when Brooder’s horse doesn’t get stolen because he says it’s too smart to get stolen by a filthy Mexican. But because they the Mexicans couldn’t steal it, they maim it, and then Breeder has to shoot his horse. And in that moment and in this moment when he realizes he’s going to die, he cries. Yep. There’s also a moment when Patrick Wilson earlier in the movie is saying Craig, and he weeps, you know, thinking about his wife.  Again, I’m not as familiar with the western genre as you are, but I can only imagine that that’s atypical.

Todd:  Yeah. Pretty much is.

Craig:  To show these men showing that kind of emotion, and I appreciated it. I actually thought that Patrick Wilson’s crying scene was a little bit overwrought. But in this moment when Brooder knew that he was going to die, I I believed it. Yeah. You know, he was he was Craig, and and I believed it. And he does. You know? He takes out, you know, the the natives come and, throw a bone tomahawk at him, and it goes right into his head. But in in the meantime, he’s able to take one of them out too.  But ultimately, they end up getting captured with and and very quickly.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  You know, I expected this to be more of a, you know, kind of back and forth kind of thing, but, no. Like, they are just captured very quickly, and they’re taken and they’re put in cages. Samantha is still there, in a cage, and Nick is still there in a cage. Samantha tells them that the drifter has already been eaten, and then we get what is surely the most gruesome moments of the whole movie. Right? I mean, I was I was a little bit shocked.

Todd:  I was really shocked that this movie was gonna go there, you know. And, again, that’s where I felt, again, like, a kind of Eli Roth vibe to it. Yeah. It’s really disgusting. They pull out the deputy, the young deputy, Nick. And, you know, he’s crying and he’s screaming. They strip him down right there in front of the rest of them in the cage. They’re in these cages in the cave.  And, they cut him up, flip him over.

Craig:  Cut him up?

Todd:  Well, they I

Craig:  was gonna I was gonna say, come on. You gotta be more descriptive than me. Alright.

Todd:  So it’s like it’s like a Mortal Kombat fatality, basically. They flip him over. One person’s got each of his legs, and they’re holding him up upside down by the legs. Yeah. And the guy with the tomahawk comes down the middle and starts hacking between his legs until they can pull him apart lengthwise. So, yeah, it’s pretty gross and, really brutal. And this happens in front of all of them.

Craig:  Yeah. And then they’re just, like, snacking on his legs like it’s a chicken leg or something, you know, in front of them. Meanwhile, Arthur has woken up and is making his way there, so we kinda see that. But, they also there are moments between the prisoners now

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Where they talk and the sheriff and Chicory still have they they took some of the opium with them, in a flask. And they think that they can poison some of the natives. Well, first of all, they ask her, Samantha, how many there are, and she estimates about 12 men. And she says there are also two women, but they’re blind cripples. And we see them later, and it’s so gross and disgusting. Like

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  Like, they are obviously just incubators. Like, it’s it’s just

Todd:  Yeah. Their eyes have been put out. They have two a stake in each eye, and then their their limbs have been cut off.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s disgusting.

Todd:  It’s really gross.

Craig:  So they do. I mean, they they play a little trick. Like, they pretend they’re fighting over the whiskey or whatever, and the cannibals take it. And and and a couple of them drink it. And she says, one of them will die. One of them will be out for several days. One of them won’t be affected at all. And she says, so there’s about seven left or five left.  I don’t know. Yeah. Then we get another scene with Arthur who is, like, totally debilitated, but manages to take out, like, five guys.

Todd:  He he turns out to be the most capable after all and really the key to their success here at the end. So it’s pretty good thing that they brought him along.

Craig:  Most capable is not even fair. Like, these guy like, he’s just laying on the ground. These guys just keep running up to him, and he keeps shooting them.

Todd:  Well, he’s smart enough to have himself backed up against, like, a like a like a rock wall or something like that. So at least I suppose. They can only approach from one spot. Plus, you’re right. These guys, they don’t seem that concerned with getting to him because they’re like, oh, he’s shooting at me. Well, I’ll break out my bow and arrow. Oh, he shot my arrow apart. I guess I better walk towards him.  And then as he comes towards him, he’s able to reload his gun in the meantime and shoot him. So Yeah. Yeah. They don’t seem quite as brutal and as quick when they’re with him as they did with the others.

Craig:  Right. Exactly.

Todd:  But the key is that he sees that there’s something in their throat, and I thought this was an interesting touch. Because there is that question, like, how are they making that ungodly noise?

Craig:  Right.

Todd:  And he sees that what they’ve done is they’ve taken, like, a piece of bone, almost like a a vertebrae or something, and fashioned it into a kind of whistle.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s like the thing that the velociraptors have Mhmm. In Jurassic Park. Yeah.

Todd:  And put and put it in their necks. So he cuts this out of one of their necks, and then he uses it to trick them. So he he blows through it and makes a that sound, and they jump out of the bushes or start running down the the way, but he’s ready to shoot them as they come. So there’s a little bit he has a little bit more of an advantage than the other guys did have, in this spot. True. But how he manages to crawl his way all the way up to the, cave, which is in the side of a cliff, I’m still kinda wondering how all that went down. Yeah. The movie doesn’t show us that part.

Craig:  No. It doesn’t explain. One of the most heart wrenching moments for me is the cannibals figure out that they have been tricked with this poison. When they had been done with it, they had taken the flask and they had thrown it in the ashes of the fire, the embers, and it was still burning. And they pulled the sheriff out, and they they knock him out

Todd:  Sort of.

Craig:  And then they slice open his abdomen, and they shove that burning hot flask inside him. And they do other things too. And the reason that it was so heart wrenching to me is because when Nick was getting killed, the sheriff had said to him, Nick, the Calvary’s coming. They’ll be here soon. We’re gonna get out of here. And Chicory had said later, is that true? And he said, no. I just made it up. And he why why would you make that up? And he said, because if that were happening to me, that’s what I would wanna hear.  And when the king will start mutilating and, you know, apparently killing him, Chicory does the same thing. He’s like, I’ll avenge your death. I’ll avenge I mean, it sound it probably sounds stupid to those of you out there listening, but you just get the sense that there was really an affection between these men.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  And for him to try to comfort him in this most brutal and horrible of moments,

Todd:  You were just sad to see Kurt Russell get hacked up.

Craig:  No. I’ve you know what? He died a a hero. No. And, like, you don’t even see him die because as you said, Arthur somehow gets himself up this cliff wall that the rest of them had to be pulled up on ropes by, but he somehow gets up there and he takes out, you know, a couple of them. And then Kurt Russell takes out the big scary one with tusks. So, you know, all the survivors are there. They know that there are still a couple of the cannibals left, and, Arthur says to the sheriff, are you sheriff, are you gonna make it? And he says, no.

Todd:  Yeah. No. It’s very clear. Are you

Craig:  are you sure? Yes. Backup deputy, I’m giving you this duty. I want you to escort them back home. And I’m gonna stay here, and I’m gonna do my best to take out the remaining ones because they know where our town is. I’m gonna try to take them out. And so they leave him. And and it’s obvious that Chicory doesn’t wanna leave him, but the sheriff insists.

Todd:  And Chicory kinda And they do. Chicory kinda lingers, and and the sheriff says a great line. He says, say goodbye to my wife, and I’ll say hello to yours. Here we are.

Craig:  I almost cried. No. I didn’t, but I almost did. That was a great

Todd:  one. Another really good case of showing without telling as they’re walking away, off into the sunset, basically. Chicory picks up a rock, to hold because

Craig:  Through that graveyard again. Mhmm.

Todd:  So this is because, like, clearly, like, oh, in case they encounter somebody, he’s got something. And then, he hears three or four gunshots, and he kinda looks back, and he tosses the rock away and goes on, which is, you know, a nice little moment to leave us with. I think it zooms in on the rock, and that’s the last shot of the movie.

Craig:  Yeah. It’s the end of the movie. Like, they they they’re confident that the sheriff did what he wanted to do. You know? He took out those because you hear four shots. So

Todd:  Yep.

Craig:  You assume that he probably, got them. And so he did what he set out to do, and and they’re gonna be okay. And yeah. I mean, overall, I liked the movie. I still don’t know that I would qualify it as a horror movie. Definitely, definitely horror elements, gruesome, brutal scenes, but it just didn’t feel like that. It felt more like a western and more like a drama and and that’s okay. You know, like, I I I do like other kinds of movies Todd, and and I did enjoy this movie.  And I I thought there was a lot of really good stuff going on here. I thought there was a lot of talent that went into it. You know, talented actors, beautiful scenery, you know, good cinematography. I I think that in the end, my favorite part of it was Chicory and his relationship with the sheriff. And I feel like well, Chicory and the sheriff, I guess, combined kinda ended up being the heroes of the movie for me. And and, I I really enjoyed that. I I enjoyed the fact that Arthur’s wife, Samantha, was a a tough woman. She wasn’t a damsel in distress.  She yeah. She happened to get captured, but that didn’t change the fact that she was a tough broad. Yeah. And I liked that. There there was a lot going on that I really, really liked. It was a little long, but overall, I thought I thought it was a a quality movie.

Todd:  Well, it was a great ride. And and I at least got to watch this movie when I wasn’t super tired. Like, sometimes I end up watching these late at night Yeah. Kinda fading away. I’m really glad that I watched this movie in the middle of the afternoon. It was the perfect middle of the afternoon movie when you’ve got time and you wanna sit down and have an experience. Because, like you said, the characterizations are just great. The story is great.  It does take its time with it, but it’s very Western, you know, in that way. It has those horror elements at the end. And, and I I also I I loved it. I thought it was great. I’ll be recommending this movie to other people. To sum up my thoughts on it, I’m I’m going back to Addison’s message to us. And she actually said, it may not be a traditional horror movie, but it’s certainly horrifying and a breath of fresh air for both the horror and western genres.

Craig:  Yeah. I think that’s fair.

Todd:  And I can’t think of a better review. Well, thank you, Addison, for your recommendation. We love the movie. If you have a request, you can find us online, either on Facebook, just search for Two Guys and a Chainsaw, and you’ll get our page. You can send us a private message or you can post there, and that’s where we usually get most of our requests from. You can also go to our website, 2guys.red40net.com, and you can find all of our episodes, our past episodes available for streaming and download. You can also leave a comment there as well. Also, by the way, we don’t ask for this usually ever, but, if you enjoyed this podcast, not only could you share it with a friend, but you could go out and review it.  If you don’t like the podcast, please don’t. But go to iTunes or Stitcher or or wherever your favorite wherever you’re getting your podcast from, and let everybody else know what you think of us because I think that probably helps us get out to a wider audience. I don’t know. Maybe it doesn’t, but that’s just, just my suspicion. Until next time, I’m Todd.

Craig:  And And I’m Craig.

Todd:  With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.