I'm trying to get more structured with watching films during the weekend and trying to watch horrors more in the evening, to try and give them a fair chance to scare. The test bed for this was the Michael Donovan Horn directed and written slasher Bone Face (in his directorial debut). Admittedly, 19:30 isn't exactly the dead of night, but for me it kind of is as I try and be in bed by 21:30 (rock and roll lifestyle I lead). The film wasn't the most effective horror out there, but it was darn entertaining, and I appreciated it tackled the slasher genre that little bit differently.
A group of camp counsellors are celebrating the end of another Summer, in a cabin on the edge of the camp ground when they come under attack from a masked assailant wielding an axe, who butchers them all. By the time the local police arrive; Sherriff Cronin (Jeremy London - Demigod) and Deputy McCully (Elena Sanchez - Texas Chainsaw uncredited), the killer is nowhere to be found. Cronin suspects the culprit could be the notorious mass murderer known as 'Bone Face' whose M.O is killing camp counsellors. With the state police on the way, the duo decide to search nearby woodland where they track the path of the killer to a nearby 24 hour diner. Cronin discovers the Bone Face mask, outfit and axe in a bin outside the diner. Figuring it is likely that one of the people in the diner is this notorious killer trying to blend in, Cronin decides to interrogate the various customers and staff at the diner while waiting for the state police to arrive. Doing so he discovers that pretty much everyone there had both a motive and an opportunity to have carried out the slaughter.
I expected a straight up slasher film, and the prologue made it seem like that was going to be the case. What I loved about Bone Face is that the meat of the film takes place after the camp murder. Typically this would be the moment when the end credits roll in a horror film, but here, it is the start. The budget is obviously not the greatest, with almost the entirety of the movie taking place in the single location of the diner, and the majority of the film being characters talking to each other. I really enjoyed this however, the cast of eccentric characters made for a mystery that get me glued to the screen. Everyone seemed suspicious, and increasingly it felt like anyone could secretly be the slasher. There is the autistic Roger who is a horror fan, and also has a strong knowledge of Bone Face's crimes. A gulf war veteran who had been fired from his job at the camp after being accused of attempted rape, two anti-authority bikers, a journalist who had captured a photo of the killer on camera after claiming to be in the area for a photo shoot for a wildlife magazine, a quiet father and daughter passing through the area who happened to have travelled past all the sites of Bone Face's previous massacres, the diner's new cook, and a variety of others. Most the film has Cronin angrily interrogating the group, though there is even suspicion thrown on him. I enjoyed the whole murder mystery aspect of the film even if it was a bit cheesy and melodramatic. The actors all play their roles in a silly and fun way, coming across as characters in a stage play more than actual living, breathing people, but with a good line in mistrust and paranoia.
The story looses itself a bit towards the end, with an eventual generic reveal that was a tad underwhelming and unexciting, and seemed to be forced as there was plenty of opportunity for the killer to have gotten away with their crimes had they just chosen to do so. Stick around through the end credits for a brief nonsensical post credit sequence if you are so inclined.
I could see people coming to the film expecting a slasher being disappointed with the relative lack of action, with this being so much more of a murder mystery. There is a heck of a lot of talking over the ninety five minute runtime, though there is a large body count also, even if a large chunk of those take the form of a quick flashback montage. There are some fight scenes, with many of the people in the diner having short tempers and taking umbrage at being detained there by the police pair. The kill scenes are fun to watch, but they are quite brief, and not much is really shown on camera aside from an axe embedded in various character's backs. The design of Bone Face was adequate, outside of the titular mask there wasn't much to them, and their on-screen time in their actual get-up equated to less than a few minutes.
Personally, I loved that the film began with the arrival of the police to the camp crime scene, and that the slasher part of this only occurred in the prologue sequence. That in itself was pretty fun as there was a bait and switch as to who the main cast would turn out to be. The indie nature of this is obvious to see, with a heck of a lot of characters sat around talking, but after a long week of work I found the cheesy murder mystery vibe of Bone Face dumb in a good way, it was nice to switch off my brain and get carried along for the ride.
SCORE:
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