Customer Reviews

NEW Bone Snatcher (DVD)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

A couple of diamond prospectors are tapping around on hard places when one actually caves in. Naturally he has to look inside and you can guess who disappears.

Mean time Dr. Zack Straker (Scott Bairstow) shows up and has fun learning the culture and different quirks of the employees of a local mine consortium.

They run into the empty pit and signs of the missing prospectors. We also are reminded that on Zack arrival we see a mysterious native with a strange fetish. Evidently there is more to the story than some missing people. To add to the mix is the beautiful Mikki (Rachel Shelley) to add to the potential love angle.

There may be something ancient that snatches bones for nefarious purposes or is it all one big bugaboo?

If you like Rachel Shelley need I say more. She plays a security employee for a Diamond company located in the Namib Desert. When a group of prospectors go missing, Rachel and her buddies head off in search of them. They soon learn that they were the victims of foul play of an alien type. The backdrop is beautiful if you enjoy deserts.

In a nutshell, this was long, boring and just plain stupid. I kept waiting for the movie to get interesting... after a while, I was just plain waiting for it to be over. When you find out what the "Bone Snatcher" turns out to be, you're either going to be highly disappointed or die laughing hysterically. You're also going to be kicking yourself for wasting your time and money like I did.

I thought from the reviews that this movie would be better than it was. It looks like a movie that was made for the Sci Fi Channel. It's okay if your flipping through channels for something to watch, but I wouldn't spend money on it. It's not scary or even tense. I think the person who wrote wow must have been in the movie or had a friend in it. I don't see anyway anyone could watch this movie and say wow. I try to see every horror film I can. I don't scare very easy, but I don't think even a child would be scared by this one.

I picked up The Bone Snatcher on the cheap in a discount movie bin. Was I ever blown away! Sure the movie has its influences, but there are some original concepts and story going on here. Wonderfully filmed and scored with a fantastic ambient soundtrack, this is another one of those movies that plays it smart by building up the story, characters, and action instead of throwing constant mindless THINK FOR YOU action in your face. A good cast, with a careful use of CGI that is original and even remarkable. This is the best ant movie I know of. Brings me back to the well written ant movie PHASE 4 (1974). In fact, though these two movies are of a different nature and were written for viewing crowds of a different time period, they do compliment each other. The Bone Snatcher is a fine movie that has rewritten the ant invasion concept. Well done!

Three people are out in the middle of the Namib Desert in Africa performing geologic surveys in hopes of discovering the next big diamond mine. When something unusual shows up in their readings, they decide to check it out. When the three never return to their home base to check in, others set out searching for them. Though the three missing individuals have only been out of contact for about 6 hours, the remains that are found seem picked almost dry. The search party sets out to find the one who killed their friends, and they realize all too soon that they are not up against any ordinary, human killer. Slowly but surely the search party gets picked off. Will the few remaining survivors find out how to destroy this flesh-eating, bone-borrowing fiend?

What appears to be some supernatural force at work out in the lonely, hot desert is actually rather explainable. As the plot thickens, we discover that there is a scientific explanation as to what is going on under the desert sun, and it involves bugs (ants). The queen has been disturbed and now roams the desert in search of a new resting-place for her and her offspring. These are similar to the scarabs in "The Mummy" with a bit of a twist.

All in all, "The Bone Snatcher" is a fairly original, lower-budget "B" horror film. This movie is quite well done. The script was well thought-out, the story line is very cohesive, and all actors involved pulled it off rather well. Some of the characters were a little underdeveloped, but nonetheless it doesn't feel as though any huge plot elements were missing. In addition, it should be noted that some of the plot elements seem very cliche (the truck breaking down in the middle of nowhere, the radio being out), but that is what cheesy B horror flicks are all about. What, after all, would horror be without creating that sense of utter isolation?

Furthermore, the effects were great. Particularly the CGI creature effects. At no point in time did the film appear cheaply executed.

This movie won't make you jump, and won't get you utterly scared stiff, but it is great for some evening entertainment. Though not a great film, this is certainly a good film, and is very much worth watching if you can appreciate decent horror movies.

Beautifully filmed in the African Desert; superior CGI effects; and realistic background music are the high points of this otherwise tedious and confusing picture. Three employees of a diamond mine factory are viewed in the prologue; they rip a hole in one of the sand dunes and out pops something that kills all three, mercilessly scraping all the flesh from their bodies. Enter an American scientist (played lifelessly by Scott Bairstow) who journeys to the site for some reason or other? Rachel Shelley is there as the initially cold and unfeeling Mickie McGee; Warrick Grier is the usual jock stud; and Adrienne Pearce does nicely as the truck driver Magda. BONE SNATCHER has some truly unnerving scenes and the ant effects are original and frightening. However, the plot is so muddled and irresolute that when it's all over, it's what did I just watch? Didn't Bairstow kill the queen? So what's that in the taxi? Nice try but not as fulfilling as it should have been.

This is a slick little film. The B-Movie plot is backed up by location shooting and some high-grade special effects.

Three prospectors are out in the Namib desert. They get an interesting reading that looks like a volcanic pipe but can't be. While there si no hope of diamonds, they still check it out. They find a large mound surrounded by poles, fetishes and other occult-looking warnings. They break open the mound, one is sucked in, and the rest are not heard from again.

Meanwhile the company they work for is having some hostile-environment-survival software trouble. The designer is sent against his will (he is a code man and not a field person). He soon finds himself dropped in the middle of nowhere by a cab.

We quickly meet the rest of the cast that includes a militant who seems only interested in being mean enough to be hazardous to the operation. The programmer also has a nifty new prototype device that can detect water from up to 100 feet away ("so will a good stick" declares the militant). The cast then sets out to find the missing guys from the movies opening and to deliver supplies to another facility.

Now that we have everyone alone in the desert, we can run into the title horror. When the missing men have been found they look to have been dead for far longer than they have. Then their bones are stolen. The nifty water detector seems to react to the creatures presence. It seems to be small things that pull together into a larger form around the bones they have stolen.

We later learn that the beasties seem to be ants and have been around and feared for a very long time. The original victims had disturbed their nest and their queen. They are now on the move to find a new safe location.

Many of the characters are very two-dimensional but that was expected. Some are typical in this sort of movie, like the programmer who may be brilliant in the computer lab, but is totally helpless in the field. We also have the tough truck driver and the take-charge female love-interest.

All in all it was a pretty well-done film with the plot being revealed steadily throughout the film. The creature(s) was(were) interesting although the ending could have used a little more explanation when the cab returns to the middle of nowhere. An original and fun movie.

The prologue of "Bone Snatcher" begins with a scenic shot of the Namibia Desert in Africa. 3 Geologists on a special assignment are killed and sucked in to the earth by a mysterious force. Meanwhile in Vancouver, British Columbia a young Canadian scientist is sent on a field research assignment to try to locate potential water sources in the desert. As he arrives in the desert post, he is aided by a crew of five on their own mission, to relocate the 3 missing geologists. As the crew etch further into the barren desert wasteland, their truck breaks down. Panic mounts as the crew find out the desert is not as barren as they thought for there are creatures out there, creatures hungry for bones...

An interesting b-movie this certainly is, a South African and Canadian co-production shot entirely in the deserts of Africa. Comparisons to films like "Tremors" and "Pitch Black" would not be unwarranted however this film reminded me most of "Nemesis 2", another good cheesy desert sci-fi film. I was surprised at how slick the production of this film is, it looks polished and not as amateurish as I thought it would. More like a quality late-night cable TV movie. The cast are a likeable lot, especially actress Rachel Shelley, who I would most definitely like to see more of in the future. The only character that annoyed was the main character, the Canadian scientist, who comes across as a total incompetent in his field and seems more preoccupied with surfing sand dunes and hitting on Rachel Shelley than doing his job. The rest of the crew are actually better at drawing scientific conclusions than he is, but I guess this was probably an intentional thing, to have the comedic benefit of a character who thinks who knows it all staggering around like a clueless dope.

The movie really picks up speed once the crew are forced to abandon the safety of their supply-heavy truck and begin a slow treck by foot across the seemingly never-ending desert. Typical of these types of movies, the crew start getting picked off one by one by mysterious creatures. The creatures are certainly quite special to say the least, slimy packs of bones, with a skull for a head who all seem to be shaped differently one from another. Whoever designed these creatures gets a nod in the originality department. I have noticed many horror fans lament the use of CGI in modern films. For the most part, I agree that gore effects are usually best left to qualified make-up effect artists than computers. However, Bone Snatcher benefits greatly from CGI technology. When the creatures suck the life out of victims, they grow meat to their bones; when they get shot, they disintegrate into a pile of jittery black sand. The CGI effects that were used to translate these images to the screen look quite remarkable. I heartily recommend "Bone Snatcher" although I will not pass it off as a great movie, it's too unintentionally dumb in many aspects for that but it certainly is a fun movie. The scenic desert shots, the electronically-flavoured tribal music filled with African chants as well cool CGI monster effects are the best reasons to give "Bone Snatcher" a go.

Okay, so this wasn't the greatest film I've ever seen, but I didn't expect it to be. The editing seemed patchy to me, and the dialog got tedious at times. So why three stars? Well, sure it's loaded with clichés and plot holes, but the concept is pretty cool and seeing the monster(s) in action was fun -- very clever idea. Besides, half the fun of watching a cheesy horror film is in laughing at the inconsistencies -- for instance, it cracked me up to watch one of the actors very, very carefully remove a vial of nitroglycerin from its padded container, only to have the other actor (after carefully carefully closing the lid) toss it into the truck. Obviously, this is special horror film nitro, created to explode only in proximity to a monster.

I was particularly confused by one scene, which I am about to describe in detail, so if you want to watch the film, you might want to stop here.

Our Heroes are huddled around a dead tree, waiting for the Horrible Monster to appear. We hear it approaching, we see it (gasp! it's hideous!), it can't cross the barrier of gasoline Our Heroes created, but then it rears back and seems to fling killer ants OVER the barrier at Our Heroes! Yikes! Fade to black, cut to next scene as Our Heroes awaken, yawn, stretch, and everyone is fine. One of Our Heroes has even been sleeping while sprawled comfortably on the sand, away from the protection of the gasoline barrier. I was so confused that I watched the scene a couple more times. Where did the Horrible Monster go? What happened to the killer ants? Why the heck didn't the thing just step over the gasoline? Did it just run away? Perhaps the gesture that I interpreted as ant flinging was actually a fist shaking, "oh if I could get over there you'd be SO eaten alive" gesture of frustration. Ah, B-horror films, what would life be without you?