BONEJANGLES: An Inside Joke for Horror Fans

Contemporary creators of Z-grade cinema are perfectly aware of their own value and of audience expectations, and this awareness allows them to cross ever further boundaries of absurdity. Bonejangles is one of many such examples from recent years and draws generously from the classics of the genre.

The plot in brief – a masked, immortal killer (resembling the protagonist of Headless) attacks a small town in which, at the same time, a zombie epidemic breaks out, with the undead being controlled by a succubus. Have you seen this somewhere before? Yes, but in several different films, and Brett DeJager’s combination, though derivative, has plenty of interesting solutions to offer and provides excellent entertainment.

The quality of the cinematography leaves no doubt as to the height of the film’s budget – it must have been shot for an extremely small amount of money; nevertheless, the cast gives it their all and effectively diminishes the impression that we are dealing with a one hundred percent amateur endeavor.

It could hardly have been otherwise, given that the screen features Reggie Bannister – an immortal romantic and the mortal enemy of the Tall Man from the Phantasm series – as well as Elissa Dowling, an actress who over the past twenty years has appeared in more than seventy bad films (including the excellent We Are Still Here, Stars in Their Eyes, or Tales of Halloween).

We do not get much of Bannister; he appears right at the beginning and occasionally in a few other moments, but his character is important to the plot. He plays Edgar Friendly, known as the New Brunswick Ripper, and the titular Bonejangles – a ruthless killer inspired by Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and a whole gallery of similar figures – is his son. As is not hard to guess, properly raised. How is it possible that he survived, among other things, being shot, stabbed, set on fire, drowned, frozen, and exposed to toxins?

Slashers usually do not provide answers to such questions, but this time the power of the villain is briefly explained – a mother’s blessing, from a voodoo priestess… And how could it be otherwise!

Of course there are kids fooling around by a campfire, of course Bonejangles is temporarily knocked out, of course the forces of law and order try to transport him to some kind of closed facility, and of course they fail, because in the tiny town of Argento (someone here has clearly watched Sounds) every year, on April 18 exactly, the dead rise from their graves to remind everyone of a crime committed years ago.

Towering above all these threads is, naturally, an atmosphere of sexual tension taking on various forms; however, another characteristic element of films of this kind has been omitted – there is less nudity in Bonejangles than in an average Polish film from the 1980s.

From the accumulation of countless clichés, something original has managed to emerge, which on the one hand functions as a parody, and on the other the screenwriter (and at the same time the performer of the titular slasher) does not merely try to tick off successive references to well-known scenes and characters without exploring his own idea.

It is interesting and engaging, though more as a curiosity, and the most serious drawback is the modest and derivative murder scenes, which after all should be the icing on the cake.

Like Scream or Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, Bonejangles should not be watched without extensive knowledge of horror cinema. Without familiarity with classic slashers, The Evil Dead, and Night of the Living Dead, the pleasure of watching Brett DeJager’s film will be much lower or even nonexistent.

These just under eighty minutes are an inside joke, created by horror fans for horror fans, and no one outside this circle will find entertainment for themselves here.