Indie horror is a big thing, and it’s a saturated market. We had the trailer for 213 Bones recently, and it looked more like a murder mystery than a horror. Well, it’s a mix of both.
213 Bones stars Colin Egglesfield, Dean Cameron, Luna Fujimoto, Liam Woodrum, Sarah Brooks, Toni Weiss, Scott Peat, and Francesca Maker McCormick. Jeffery Primm directs and co-writes with Dominic Arecelin.
The Story
The story for 213 Bones is:
College students are brutally murdered by a gruesomely masked attacker. It is left to Sherriff Bracco, Laurie the County Coroner and their teacher, Kelly, to find out who the real bone crunching murderer is.
We start two years ago, and open with a murder by a masked person. There’s a bit of side boob, so a good opener. However, these opening murders seem to have zero relation to the rest of the story.
We then jump to the present (which is actually 1993), and we meet the main protagonists. They are all students in a pathology class, where they are learning that the human body has 213 bones. It’s an ensemble group, which I will mention later.
The killer turns up again and starts, you know, killing. I was then hoping for a bit more of a murder mystery, but it then plays out as a standard slasher. The ending is as bog-standard as it comes.
The Cast
The main issue with 213 Bones is the cast. I liked the cast, but they were the ‘perfect group to get murdered’ types. Let’s see, the girls are a redhead, a blonde, an Asian brunette, the guys were a geek, a bad boy and a stoner. I think I missed a couple off there, but you get the idea.
What made me laugh the most was the bad boy. I get how the rest of the group were in a pathology class, but the bad boy, he was as out of place as an attractive girl at a Star Wars convention. Now, I might have missed why he was in the class; maybe it was extra credit or something, but honestly, I didn’t care.
The other issue with 213 Bones was that it took itself too seriously. I think it was trying to be camp horror, but it never leaned into the camp. If you have a cast like this, who are all playing stereotypes, make it camp.
Cliches
As with most of these movies, 213 Bones is full of every cliché in the book. At one point, one of the couples is on for some ‘bedroom antics’, but she has to go and set the coffee machine.
Would you believe it, she gets killed, then so does he. Even I saw it coming a mile away, and I’m terrible at second-guessing things.
As I said, I was hoping for more of a murder mystery, which most horrors are, but this one looked different from the trailer. However, it wasn’t.
There are terrible suspects to the murders; there’s an old guy with a chainsaw, who could be the killer. No, he’s not, he’s too obvious. Again, if they leaned into the camp, it would have made it more entertaining, but it was taking itself too seriously.
Overall
As you all know, I watch a lot of horror, and this is another slasher movie, with a stereotypical cast, and an ending that just ends the movie. The killer isn’t all that obvious, but their reasons are pretty stupid to be honest.
There is some nice direction and great photography, but it’s not enough to save the movie that just didn’t know what it wanted to be. Either make a scary slasher or make a camp one. If this were more camp, it would have been a lot more fun.
I guess 213 Bones might be a good movie for beers and mates for an evening, but that’s about it. There are a lot better slashers out there, with much better stories and better endings. I’m giving it a generous 1.5 out of 5 stars.
213 Bones is out on digital, I think. I’m a little late with this review.
