Bonehill Road

Director - Todd Sheets (Dreaming Purple Neon, House of Forbidden Secrets)
Starring - Eli DeGeer (China White Serpentine, Empire State of the Dead), Ana Rojas-Plumberg (Dreaming Purple Neon), and Linnea Quigley (Night of the Demons, Return of the Living Dead)
Release Date - 2017
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Hunger shows no mercy"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Not everyone can make a name for themselves in the horror genre.  Some work for decades only to give up or move on with their life while others are able to make a name for themselves fairly early on in their career.  Director Todd Sheets is a man who has one hell of a film career.  He started directing over 30 years ago and quickly made a name for himself as a S.O.V. director with several of his films gaining a cult following.  Sheets has been very consistent with his career and the last few years saw him release several new films.  In 2017 he wrapped production on his werewolf flick Bonehill Road and sometime later Wild Eye Releasing released it on DVD.  I've been looking at the DVD for some time and decided that now was the best time to check it out.  Thank you Wild Eye for sending this one my way!

     The film follows a mother and daughter pair who escape an abusive relationship.  While traveling down a country road at night they encounter a big creature that they think is a bear.  A second encounter forces them to wreck their car and they seek help at a nearby home.  When they enter the home unannounced they find several women tied to chairs and soon find themselves face to face with a serial killer.  The two must face off against the evil inside the home along with the beasts lurking outside looking for their next meal.

     Bonehill Road is one of the many Wild Eye releases that I was looking forward to.  The artwork for the film is absolutely amazing and I love a good werewolf flick.  I'm a member of countless horror groups so I've heard mixed things in these groups about the film but I usually ignore things like that to make my own opinion on the film.  After seeing the film I have to say that I was not a fan.  The film has promise but just didn't go over well with me.  I wanted to love it and I hate writing a negative review for a Wild Eye release but I can't like them all.  The acting in this one is fantastic.  Eli DeGeer and Ana Rojas-Plumberg are fantastic together.  They work so well together and their characters genuinely feel like they are related.  There was a few occasions where Rojas-Plumberg is a little overdramatic which does come off as a bit much but for the most part she was a joy to watch with DeGeer.  I also liked Douglas Epps performance.  His psychotic character was fun for some of the scenes but in others he was just not as sinister as one would expect for a serial killer.  Creepy, sure but not sinister.  These down trotting scenes almost made him come across as the creepy youth leader that hugs the girls a little too long but not murderous.  With that being said, I could see him giving one hell of a performance as Dahmer.  The story for this one almost flows like two stories coming together with both being a little underdeveloped.  The serial killer angle mixing with the werewolves has the making to be the greatest horror film of the last 20 years but neither part reach their full potential.  However, neither side of the story is fully explored.  The werewolf portion of the film starts the movie out but then takes the back seat until the ending of the film.  In the mean time we get a serial killer story that doesn't fully come to a boil.  To give both of these the treatment they deserved the film would have been a lot longer and I would be completely ok with that.  Finally, the film doesn't shy away from the red stuff.  We get plenty of blood and some gore with some solid practical effects.  I was expecting a little more gore but I'm happy with what we got.  Overall, Bonehill Road is a pretty ambitious indie horror production that has all the makings to be an unforgettable horror flick but just couldn't pull it together.  The story as is still deserves a watch but don't expect a movie you can revisit several times after the first viewing.  The movie is out now on DVD from Wild Eye Releasing.