Stephen King Admits He Misjudged Kurt Russell’s Hidden-Gem Western
Stephen King has publicly revised his take on a Kurt Russell–led Western horror, acknowledging he judged it too harshly at first after revisiting it years later.
Stephen King weighs in on a lot of horror films, but every once in a while he’ll drop a belated take on something that sort of slipped under the radar—or at least under his. This time he’s had a bit of a revelation with ‘Bone Tomahawk’, S. Craig Zahler’s oddball mash-up of Western and horror that, for some reason, most people (including me, to be fair) missed when it first slouched out in 2015. The thing made less than half a million dollars in cinemas despite boasting Kurt Russell and a moustache worth the ticket price alone, so if it passed you by too, you’re not alone.
King's Mea Culpa: 'I Slept on This One'
King took to X (if you’ve blissfully forgotten, that’s what we’re calling Twitter now) and put it in plain terms. He admits he sat down for ‘Bone Tomahawk’ with zero expectations—something to kill time on a sluggish Wednesday morning—only to find himself genuinely gripped:
'I was expecting nothing but a time-passer on a rainy Wednesday morning, and got a low-budget Western epic. The dialogue alone makes it well worth watching. Beware the last act, when a man is literally torn apart.'
You’ve got to give him credit, he knows how to pull a punchline. If the idea of a man being ‘literally torn apart’ didn’t just catch your attention, I don’t know what will.
Why 'Bone Tomahawk' Is Worth Another Look
Here’s the thing: on the surface, ‘Bone Tomahawk’ looks like one of those dreary, under-lit Westerns that get filed away for Sunday afternoon background noise or, if you’re being honest, ‘films to watch when you’re hungover and don’t want to think’. But it isn’t. The script is tight, the pacing’s bang on, and the dialogue is smart enough to stand next to both classic and modern Westerns.
The premise is delightfully straight-up: Kurt Russell’s old-school sheriff assembles a posse to go and rescue some kidnapped townsfolk. Tick off your favourite Western tropes: stony landscapes, bandits, a cast of men who all look like they could’ve been weathered by decades of bourbon and disappointment. But then, somewhere between the sagebrush and the six-shooters, it mutates into full-blown horror territory—think less ‘stagecoach ambush’, more ‘nightmare cannibal cave’ stuff.
It’s this shift that puts ‘Bone Tomahawk’ on a completely different level. Instead of pitched gunfights with rival outlaws or tedious moral dilemmas, the real threat is a tribe of cannibalistic troglodytes. They’re not just scary by Western standards—these are ‘make a seasoned gore fan shift uncomfortably in their seat’ levels of unpleasant. The last act, as King said, is especially rough going if you’re a bit squeamish.
The Cast: No Slouching Here
- Kurt Russell as Sheriff Hunt – Moustache majesty; does gruff leadership with zero effort.
- Patrick Wilson as the upright, injured husband – torn between pain and a sense of duty, plays the straight man beautifully.
- Matthew Fox as the dapper, slightly sinister gunslinger – clearly enjoying being on the darker side.
- Richard Jenkins as the quirky, good-hearted deputy – manages to steal scenes and nail the film’s awkward, dark humour.
All four work together in that classic ‘men-on-a-mission’ kind of way, riffing off each other’s quirks and ratcheting up the tension when things go south.
Final Thoughts (From King, Not Me)
For a film that didn’t exactly set the box office alight, getting a thumbs-up from Stephen King a full nine years after release is a bit of a twist. He’s blunt about it: don’t let the low budget or small release fool you, ‘Bone Tomahawk’ deserves a spot on the shelf, whether you come for the Western, the horror, or—let’s be honest—Russell’s facial hair.