The Bone Snatcher

Rating:
Summary: Pedestrian
Review: At first I thought the words "The Bone Snatcher" applied to my nine year old dog Charley and his propensity to get a little impatient when I offer him a treat. Then I suddenly remembered I don't have a nine year old dog named Charley. Oh well. I do have a nine year old cat but he shows little interest in old bones. He does, however, show an inordinate amount of interest in the bones in my hands and legs since he's spent his entire life trying to peel the flesh away to get at them. Alas, I digress. "The Bone Snatcher" is a movie shot in South Africa, specifically the Namib Desert region. I'm a bit leery of films made by South Africans or in South Africa since I witnessed a horror film going under the name of "Slash" last year on the Fourth of July. That film was also South African in origin, and it wasn't very good. In fact, it was far less than good and far less than original. It starred Steve Railsback, usually a good character actor and quite friendly to the horror genre. He was about the only good thing in "Slash," now that I think about it. Again, I apologize for drifting off topic; I needed something to flesh this review out. "Pad" might be a better word.

"The Bone Snatcher" sees a Canadian scientist named Zack (Scott Bairstow) sent on a useless mission to South Africa by his boss. So far so good. The problem with this mission concerns a group of diamond hunters who disappear in the desert after discovering some strange cone shaped structure in the sand. Predictably, one of these lunkheads cracks a big hole in this thing, sticks his head in to take a good look around, and something (we don't see what) leaps out at him. Scary, or so the filmmakers hope. Then Dr. Zack arrives on the scene to do his...er...thing. Right from the start he meets up with a bunch of uniformed goons ostensibly working for his employer, guys that make the inmates in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" look like senior fellows at a think tank. "The Bone Snatcher" presents us with tough guy Karl (Warrick Grier), a beautiful British scientist named Mikki (Rachel Shelley), a taciturn fraulein called Magda (Adrienne Pearce), a superstitious black guy referred to as Titus (Patrick Shal), and Kurt (Andre Weideman). A fun bunch, this group. Before Zack can even get around to introducing himself, a fight breaks out between two of these guys over some mundane relationship issue. It's obvious they've spent far too much time filling their buckets with sand, and Zack's caught right in the middle.

The missing diamond hunters inspire this group to head out on a rescue mission, which means Zack must come along for the ride. Have you ever seen a film about a road trip through the desert? The whole film? Sure, the scenery looks cool to those of us unaccustomed to such arid climes, but a big truck filled with Type A meatheads grinding along a deserted desert road becomes an exercise in staring at the old wristwatch faster than you can say, "When is this thing gonna end?" Before you can say, "I'll bet the truck breaks down," the truck breaks down. This is usually a sign that the hostilities are about to begin, or so I hoped. Sure enough, someone stumbles over heaps of human bones in the desert. And soon thereafter, the group puts two and two together and figures out that the diamond miners bit the bullet. What they can't figure out is how the flesh disappeared so quickly. Enter superstitious black guy Titus, who begins mumbling a bunch of bunkum about some old desert entity that uses bones to actualize a physical presence. Of course, he signed his death warrant as soon as he imparted his arcane knowledge to the rest of the group because this very creature emerges out of the desert to wreak havoc on our merry band of Alpha males. Zack and the survivors must battle this monster, find its lair, and wipe it out using only their wits (a tall task for this group of rocket scientists)

Actually, "The Bone Snatcher" isn't a total loss. The gore scenes, involving a melted arm and other assorted nasty stuff, looks pretty good for such a low budget production. Unfortunately, there isn't enough sauce to save the picture. First, the CGI effects used to depict the bone snatcher just don't pass muster. In fact, they look incredibly cheesy and cheap. Second, the performances are at best lackluster and at worst lackluster. Throwing in Rachel Shelley as the obligatory eye candy certainly helps, but not enough to draw my eyes away from the testosterone fueled antics exhibited by Karl and the others. However, bad performances aren't enough to sink a film in the view of this schlock lover, and the acting chops on display here aren't nearly as bad as the atrocities I've witnessed in hundreds of other films. Third, and finally, the movie is boring because the pacing lags horribly. I felt like I could have read the collected works of Leo Tolstoy and Vladimir Lenin in the time it took me to watch "The Bone Snatcher." This baby just didn't move the way a horror movie ought to move.

Trailers for "The Bone Snatcher," "Between Strangers," and "Hollywood North" are the lone extras on this disc. I feel I can only recommend "The Bone Snatcher" to lovers of crud cinema, although it's entirely possible other audiences could see a few things worth watching here. Overall, I think I can live with myself giving the flick two stars since the gore and Rachel Shelley do give it a nudge in the right direction. At least I hope I can live with myself...


Rating:
Summary: LONG LIVE THE QUEEN?
Review: Beautifully filmed in the African Desert; superior CGI effects; and realistic background music are the high points of this otherwise tedious and confusing picture. Three employees of a diamond mine factory are viewed in the prologue; they rip a hole in one of the sand dunes and out pops something that kills all three, mercilessly scraping all the flesh from their bodies. Enter an American scientist (played lifelessly by Scott Bairstow) who journeys to the site for some reason or other? Rachel Shelley is there as the initially cold and unfeeling Mickie McGee; Warrick Grier is the usual jock stud; and Adrienne Pearce does nicely as the truck driver Magda. BONE SNATCHER has some truly unnerving scenes and the ant effects are original and frightening. However, the plot is so muddled and irresolute that when it's all over, it's what did I just watch? Didn't Bairstow kill the queen? So what's that in the taxi? Nice try but not as fulfilling as it should have been.

Rating:
Summary: LONG LIVE THE QUEEN?
Review: Beautifully filmed in the African Desert; superior CGI effects; and realistic background music are the high points of this otherwise tedious and confusing picture. Three employees of a diamond mine factory are viewed in the prologue; they rip a hole in one of the sand dunes and out pops something that kills all three, mercilessly scraping all the flesh from their bodies. Enter an American scientist (played lifelessly by Scott Bairstow) who journeys to the site for some reason or other? Rachel Shelley is there as the initially cold and unfeeling Mickie McGee; Warrick Grier is the usual jock stud; and Adrienne Pearce does nicely as the truck driver Magda. BONE SNATCHER has some truly unnerving scenes and the ant effects are original and frightening. However, the plot is so muddled and irresolute that when it's all over, it's what did I just watch? Didn't Bairstow kill the queen? So what's that in the taxi? Nice try but not as fulfilling as it should have been.

Rating:
Summary: twisting my melons man
Review: Clearly Mariann has far too much time on her hands. She could me more usefully employed training rabbits to swim or something. Me? I enjoyed this cracking camp romp through the desert. Having spent large tracts of my childhood watching my socks and sandals father puring boiling water from an old grey whistling kettel (cf. Basil Brush - The Whistling Kettle and the something Cat - anyone? Somebody/ Somewhere? No. just me and Lazzwell and Dazzwell under the mystic spell of the singing fox and his liquid gold tonsils then) on winged ants on the one day of the year when they sprung from the cracked concrete yard in our home, I have always had a soft spot for termites and so was drawn to the film before I'd seen a frame of its deliciously unwholesome horror pop shots. My children squealed with pleasure beside me while we watched it, but that's another story. A thoroughly enjoyable way to spend your time : I have seen this film three times now and thought the porducer was so hot I married her. Live a little? Live a lotto? take the plunge with Bonesnatcher : it's a grower, it's a growler, it's a groover. So long Mariann.

Rating:
Summary: Don't expect too much from this
Review: I got this DVD as a gift and after reading the back I came to the conclusion that it was nothing but mindless violence with an unoriginal plot. Needless to say I went in not expecting much. Although it wasn't scary it still wasn't a complete waste of time. The acting, while not extraordinary, is still believable. Although there is a lot of cliche to this movie. For instance, every horror movie always has that one person who defies good logic and chases whatever the movie is about, this has a guy like that. There's also always the guy who knows something about it and warns his friends/colleagues but they refuse to listen, this has a guy like that. Despite all of that though this is a pretty original movie, not necessarily good, but not bad.

The plot centers around Alex. He's a scientist who is called upon to venture to the desert despite his hatred for field-work. Skip forward about 15-20 minutes the group comes across some bones stripped of flesh. They recall hearing that a few prospectors went missing and come to the conclusion that these bones belong to at least one of them. The 'monster' in this is quite eery since you never get an extremely good look at him. Alex soon finds out what has killed the prospectors when he wakes up to find the 'monster' staring him dead in the face. The movie then wanders for a bit having the group come across another set of bones and an interesting run-in with some sand flies that resemble ants. They are then led to the creatures lair and chaos ensues, I use that term lightly by the way.

Overall this movie isn't ground-breaking by any means, just your typical run-of-the-mill horror movie that ceases to scare you in the least. Don't go into this movie thinking you're going to see some good special effects or gore, there isn't any. The bones stripped of flesh I mentioned earlier consists of red bones. The goriest part is when two members of the group are swarmed with the sand flies which eat their flesh, and even that's not enough to scare you. The reason this movie got three stars is because of Scott Bairstow and Rachel Shelley. These two are the only ones holding together this less than stellar plot.

Rating:
Summary: Very scary and looks great
Review: I hadn't read much about this very slick film but I'm glad I caught it because it was a terrific couple of hours and in fact I'd love to see it again. First of all it's an original story idea but still works as a classic supernatural thriller horror kind of thing. Secondly you've got some great actors, quite a few new ones actually that I didn't recognize, and almost all of them give very convincing performances. And then of course you've got a load of action, special effects and good ol' scares all the way through. Basically its about some diamond prospectors who go missing and a security corps is dispatched out into the Namibian desert to find them. That's when everything starts to get crazy and slowly the situation gets out of control because of some kind of mythological and evil presence that's out there in the dunes. Some love stuff happens and then it's just down to three of them plus a pretty good climax down in an old abandoned mine.

Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: I picked up The Bone Snatcher on the cheap in a discount movie bin. Was I ever blown away! Sure the movie has its influences, but there are some original concepts and story going on here. Wonderfully filmed and scored with a fantastic ambient soundtrack, this is another one of those movies that plays it smart by building up the story, characters, and action instead of throwing constant mindless THINK FOR YOU action in your face. A good cast, with a careful use of CGI that is original and even remarkable. This is the best ant movie I know of. Brings me back to the well written ant movie PHASE 4 (1974). In fact, though these two movies are of a different nature and were written for viewing crowds of a different time period, they do compliment each other. The Bone Snatcher is a fine movie that has rewritten the ant invasion concept. Well done!

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: I thought from the reviews that this movie would be better than it was. It looks like a movie that was made for the Sci Fi Channel. It's okay if your flipping through channels for something to watch, but I wouldn't spend money on it. It's not scary or even tense. I think the person who wrote wow must have been in the movie or had a friend in it. I don't see anyway anyone could watch this movie and say wow. I try to see every horror film I can. I don't scare very easy, but I don't think even a child would be scared by this one.

Rating:
Summary: Better than expected.
Review: I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. My expectation for watching this was to suffer through bad acting and bad storyline just to get to "the monster". By setting the story in the desert, the production value was spent on the CGI monster and better actors than I thought would appear in a movie like this. To be sure, this is a "B movie", but it performs as well as some of hollywood's mainstream offerings. The cast are all Australian/British and unlike Mad Max or Crocodile Dundee do not have super "over-the-top" personalities. The other movies tend to make you focus on the accents and mannerisms in an attempt to add some value to their storyline. The plot is pretty straightforward: Specualtors in the desert uncover something nasty and get killed. Some reseachers happen upon them and then the fun begins... There are only one or two "cliche" moments in this movie, (the awkward boy-girl kiss) & ("i can't kill the monster, I'm a scientist and I must STUDY it" *hoofa*) which is why I have to ding it a star, otherwise I'd have given this movie 4 stars, by simply over-achieving on a low budget. I recommend it for renting or if you have 5 bucks burning a hole in your pocket at the DVD discount rack.

Rating:
Summary: Good Story With Potential, But Falls A Little Short
Review: I've seen plenty of movies like this one. It has a neat story line in it, but for the obvious reasons that hinder B-movies, it falls short of its potential. "The Bone Snatcher" starts off well enough, with three miners being attacked and stripped of their flesh by some "thing." A group seeks out the three missing individuals and come upon two of their skeletal remains. The third member of the party is accused of murder by one of the search party members. Tracking his footprints, they find his remains as well. They decide to hunt down the real murderer, which leads to a classic B-movie scenario of the team members being picked off one-by-one as the group slowly comes to realize what they are chasing. Though this is considered a horror film, there isn't much to horrify you in this picture.

The actual "Bone Snatcher" creature looks pretty good considering there probably wasn't much of a budget for the flick. Most of the acting is done in a very stiff fashion, though a couple of the characters, especially Magda, do manage to connect with the audience. Scott Bairstow is mediocre, especially considering that he is the "star" of the show. His acting isn't very convincing to me. In fact, he looks like he doesn't even want to be there. Rachel Shelley is a beautiful lady, and I hope that her career moves beyond this type of "B" fare. Her character is pretty interesting, but it's pulled off in a confused sort of way. The rest of the cast is cluttered with stock "B" characters placed on the screen for the sole purpose of being the next victim.

The story moves along at a snails pace, and the action is thin and spread far apart. The best scene involves the "snatcher" and a team member in a sleeping bag. The CGI is along the same lines as those in "The Mummy Returns." That's pretty good considering the funds available for this flick.

So why did I give it three stars? First of all, it's an above-average B-movie with a really good story, even though it drops off as the movie trudges along. Secondly, the creature effects are done very well despite a low budget. Finally, the scenery is shot very well, making the best of the desert surroundings. Overall, this movie is worthy of two to three viewings, and then it will collect dust on the shelf. If you like standard Sci-Fi channel fare, then this movie will suffice. Recommended to hardcore sci-fi fans who relish in B-movie schlock and know what to expect from such films.