Another indie review, this time Bone Keeper, for which we shared the trailer recently. I said in that article that it seemed like an old school creature feature, and this is exactly what it was.
Bone Keeper stars Sarah Alexandra Marks, Louis James, Tiffany Hannam-Daniels, Sophia Eleni, Danny Rahim, and John Rhys-Davies. Howard J. Ford is the writer and director.
The Story
The story for Bone Keeper isn’t the most original, but:
Six young friends investigate missing persons cases in a remote cave system, unaware they’re being stalked by an ancient creature lurking in the depths.
Do these people never learn? A group of people in a cave/wood/abandoned, creepy place. Don’t ever go in; it’s not going to end well.
The opening shot is similar to The Thing; something crashes on Earth and ends up deep in the caverns in England. In the 1970s, a team discovered the ‘something’, but no one made it out alive.
Present day, and a group are heading to the caverns. One of the group, Olivia (Alexandra-Marks), is looking for evidence of her grandfather, who was one of the men missing from the 1970s.
Along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker, who’s also an influencer on social media. From the moment we meet her, I was hoping she would get eaten.
They all meet up with Professor Harrison (Rhys-Davies), who was also in the original team. He warns them not to go to the caves…. and they don’t, and all live happily ever after.
They obviously go. They find the ‘something’, and that’s all I’m going to spoil.
The Cast
Friends of the Last Movie Outpost, Alexandra-Marks and James are in this. They are a couple in real life and work together a lot. They play off each other well, although I found that James’ character, Ethan, was a bit of an annoying prick.
I’m a joker, always making jokes, usually at inappropriate moments. Ethan did the same thing most of the time; wow, I didn’t like in Ethan what I don’t like about myself. That’s as deep as the cave they go into.
It was nice to see Rhys-Davies, and he really got his teeth into the role. He’s in the opening act, which was too long, but I see why they used him so much. It was also nice to see that he was present throughout the rest of Bone Keeper, but not overly used.
Creature Feature
Who doesn’t love a good monster? People in a cave, for one. When you get a good monster, it’s more fun to hide it and only reveal it near the end, like in Alien.
Bone Keeper does this; it has hints of the monster throughout the movie, but shows it in all its glory in the third act.
Ford, the director, must have had a bigger budget than usual for this movie, as the special effects are good, very good. Some of the monster is practical, but some of it is obviously CG. When you do see it, the design is really good, not quite ‘nightmare fuel’, but still creepy as hell.
Good monster design is essential in a creature feature, obviously, and they nail it here. Although I have the sneaky suspicion that some of the monster was created by AI, I hope I’m wrong, because the designer deserves the credit.
Overall
As you know, we don’t shill at the Last Movie Outpost, and I have stayed in touch with Alexander-Marks and James since my last interview with them. If this was bad, we would still say so.
I genuinely had fun with Bone Keeper, and I’m not just saying that.
I grew up on creature features; my dad showed me all sorts of B-movies, with weird and wonderful monsters. I love them. Bone Keeper goes back to those days, with a group of people just getting picked off by a monster.
Some of the people, you were sad to see go, others give you a rueful smile as they are taken. In the group dynamic, there are always ones you don’t like; it’s usually me, so I would be the first to be eaten.
As I said, there’s nothing that original about Bone Keeper, but it’s about the journey, and I was happy to follow everyone, trying to guess who’s next. There are similarities with The Thing, but it’s not a carbon copy; it’s just similar.
One minor nitpick thing is the camera work. Ford loves a strong DoF in his shots, but I feel he overly uses them. While in the car, on the way to the cave, each of the shots is in a strong DoF; so, the subject is in focus, but everything else is out of focus.
To me, it made more sense to have an open aperture when outside, then use a strong DoF in the cave, to give it that sense of claustrophobia. Hark at me, being all psychological with shots.
Overall, Bone Keeper was fun. You can see there is a limited budget, but you can sweep that aside with the solid story and a cool monster at the end.
The trailer for the movie has done well on social media, and I hope it’s a hit for the cast and crew. I know I had fun watching it.
Bone Keeper has a premiere on the 6th of March, then on digital on the 6th of April. I’m hoping to interview Alexandra-Marks and James again, although he might not want to chat after I called his character a prick.
