Dead Bones - Review

Review by: Todd Brown

2008 is the year of the horror-western, apparently, and one that we have been tracking for quite some time here is Swiss director Olivier Beguin’s twenty minute short Dead Bones, which has just premiered at the Sitges Festival. What do we learn from this film? There is a reason why people might be inclined to name a town Dead Bones, dammit, and maybe it’d be best if you just went ahead and rode around it.

The film tells the story of a bounty hunter who rides into a remote town in pursuit of a pair of criminals only to discover the town itself is far more dangerous than his quarry. Shot on location using the still-existing Spanish sets that hosted the large majority of spaghetti westerns through the 1970’s Dead Bones has a remarkably authentic and cinematic quality to it, and full marks go to Beguin for having the good sense to start things off right by going back to the land that made westerns popular in the first place.

As is often the case with a project such as this in which virtually everybody involved is working outside of their first language - it’s shot in English with a multi-ethnic cast and crew - the rhythms of the dialog can feel forced and unnatural in places but Beguin shows his chops in a pair of extended set pieces that crank up the tension nicely: an underground chase through a series of tunnels with bounty hunter and prey chained together at the wrist and an extended, tightly choreographed outdoor gun battle. Also very noteworthy are the stellar gore effects, the first gouts of blood splattered on the screen by Cannibal Holocaust director Ruggero Deodata, appearing in an extended cameo.