Bonehill Road Review from Wild Eye Releasing!

I won’t beat around the bush here, I had a good feeling about the latest movie, Bonehill Road, from Todd (Dreaming Purple Neon, and loads of short flicks dating back to the 80s!!!) Sheets the moment I absorbed the music as the beginning credits did their thing. They were nice and relaxing but haunting at the same time. And the awesome music changes up a bit but stays as we are hurled into a punishing domestic abuse scenario as a teen daughter, Eden, walks in on her Mom getting beat down. She’s been kicked out of school, so she runs and hides in her room as badly acted Dad rampages after her. Not to worry, Mum knocks him out cold with a classic frying pan move. ‘Bonk’, he goes down. On the run, because he gets up and says “Bitch” a lot, they make a dash onto the roads.

Fuck me, the soundtrack for Bonehill Road is so good. All church bells and dramatic key cuts. I want a CD of it now! Anyhow, stopping off to clean up on their way out of town, they are halted for a minute by the movie’s creepy bloke, Coen, who leers and smiles knowingly hinting at more escapades and laughs with him later on. “You two ladies travel safe. It’ll be getting dark soon.” Thus the sun sets atmospherically with a great piano — oh God, enough about the music scores — they are truly pulling me deep into this flick.

It’s 11:55 and they’re driving along a dark road. The radio is cutting out. It’s the middle of nowhere. Not good. Suddenly a human-sized animal runs across the road, and for some reason, Eden asks Mom to nip out for a better look, even though it’s gone. It’s night time, two women alone in nowhere land, to hell with it, just keep driving, obviously no one got hit or hurt, damn you! Drive! She gets back in the car after hearing a growl. She tells her daughter there’s no blood and no sounds of pain. “You know how I feel about animals.” Eden bleats.

As they talk, something heavy and solid strikes the car, puncturing a tyre, which they discover as they frantically drive off. The car is totally against a tree, and they find they left their phone charger back at the house. It isn’t long before they have company.

Brief flashes of the creatures indicate we’re in The Howling-inspired visual look as we can guess there’s werewolves on the loose. Shots of feet, claws and a mouth, classic and edgy. They escape literally at the last moment and run into the night but Mom is scratched down her leg. End of the road, Mom, check your werewolf movies, your time is ticking by.

They chance upon a property wherein they discover two women who are beaten and tied up – one happens to be Linnea Quigley. Coen appears behind Eden with a blade and a leering psychopathic grin. What could have been a brief easily forgotten interlude becomes a tasty sub-plot because Coen is simply a gnarled and rotten screw-faced head case. The actor is loving it. Our hairy buddies gather outside the house and take a back step as the four women have to endure Coen and his gory hospitality.

There’s a lot of decent practical effects in Bonehill Road which has obviously commanded a fair bit of care and attention. The werewolves are amazing whilst seen in sections or in shadow, however I have to say any full body shots are a bit weak, but hey, budget is a bitch. At the end of the day they are there and they are brutal. We have a blade twisting gutting scene as well and that delivers the red meat as does the dismemberments and parts of innards are waved in the air with gusto. The gore score hits the 10 mark when Coen hangs around. That’s one thing Bonehill Road certainly isn’t short of, the big red stuff.

If I have to gripe it’s the fact that once we’ve left the Coen section behind, the rest feels like padding, that’s because, to me, his part of Bonehill Road went on too long but not in a bad way, it became better and better and once it was over, oh, back to the werewolves again then. Maybe he could have been split apart a bit so to run throughout somehow. I dunno, it’s just how I feel.

MOVIE

Overall Score 4

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Bonehill Road Review from Wild Eye Releasing!

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