Alice Hardy’s (Tracie Savage) life was far from what she hoped for. Things are not that good with her husband Norman (Paul Kratka) the university lecturer, and her neighbor, Samuel Myers (Steve Bauer), is rather unsettling. The only thing that keeps Alice somewhat sane is a field that grows corn. All aspirations of a peaceful life dissipate when Samuel’s wife goes missing and university students start appearing dead. Alice suspects that the killer is nearby, but how nearby is he?
The Bone Garden, directed by Mike Gutridge, is schlockful, but only if consumed with certain expectations. Innovations are always welcome in the genre of horror, but in this case the less is screamed, the more unique the work feels. By no means should the viewers expect a gory horror film as there was a lot of emphasis put on mysterys. Throughout the movie, audiences watch Alice struggle and eventually gather the courage to stop allowing her husband’s infidelity and their marriage to dictate her life. The best mysteries are those that have no indication of the solution. The Bone Garden cannot do that, the killer is easy to guess, though Gutridge is able to add a few twists to his credit, although all reveals come off as shocking, and they definitely shouldn’t make sense. Among these shocking reveals is the most outrageous, a supposed second serial killer has been eliminating male pupils.
There’s no doubt that this reveal is a total cheat: there had been no mention of any male students dying prior to the second killer appearing. I guess this could be accursed to the Gutridge’s understanding that people seldom consider male victims of violent crimes, but I doubt it. Honestly, Gutridge’s film does not seem to have much on its mind other than the desire to party. On this front, The Bone Garden is kind of amazing, the film itself is dumb, but in an enchanting way. Some things that should be irritating, such as the fact that Detective Meeker (Ron Millkie) appears to have some suspicion against Alice, are not annoying, they are just absurd.
It seems like the main issue for the movie is overly humorous and overly easter egg names. The school where Norman is employed, Carpenter College. Alice’s best friend is Laurie Curtis (Tammy Kaitz). Norman’s other exceedingly obnoxious co-worker, Ben Tramer (Terry McConnaughey). In addition to all of the previously mentioned Halloween animal references, there is a dog named Jason along with a character called Alice Hardy. One would presume that, considering the film’s star is Tracie Savage, Gutridge would have been a little more creative and chosen to name his heroine Debbie. What a terrible change that would have been. I personally find this form of homage to be rather odd. With all the attention paid to Halloween, Friday the 13th, Psycho and other films, one would expect that some influence from those movies and their makers on Gutridge’s style would exist. It does not exist. The Bone Garden has not managed to attain style. Like the other, it features a complete lack of it. Bone Garden does not include any brilliant application of the wide screen frame of the entire scope of the setting and does not employ fast-paced editing that syncs the crusade against the score. Rather, it looks like the only thing Gutridge took away from the classics was that characters need names and those names can be recycled. It’s hard to believe, but this fact leaves me speechless. While understanding how impossible adequately replicating these classic pieces of cinema is, I firmly believe that failure in this noble effort is better than shying away altogether.
It’s anyone’s guess as to why I found The Burn Garden enjoyable, but for some reason I’m not entirely sure, I did. While the performances from Savage and Kaitz, and Kratka were decent, everything else was rather dull. The plot was flimsy at best, and the ending was totally nonsensical. Still, somehow, I enjoyed watching it. I could not help myself, something about the film’s warped internal geography drew me in. Alice and Norman appear to live in the countryside, which you would think would take a good amount of time to commute, however, Alice is able to walk back from the college bar in only minutes. Alice’s house is situated in what appears to be a farming community with cornfields all around it, but yet she lives so close to her neighbor that she is able to see into their house. Another thing about The Bone Garden that I found so interesting is that so many of the young male students at Carpenter College were so obsessed with Laurie, who is easily 20 years older than them. I was equally puzzled about why Norman was so intent on harassing the poor fellow whom I presumed to be Ben Tramer, who seemed to stroll aimlessly around Carpenter College’s halls. Ben was relentless, and wherever Norman was, he would always ask him what he was up to.
Typically, these would have been issues, but they instead made me smile. Honestly, it was all too ridiculous to despise.
Camp Motion Pictures have shamelessly put out The Bone Garden with the photo being presented in a rather lowered 16X9 enhanced 1.66:1. For a film carrying such low budgets, the quality of the image is decent. The image is clean with no artifacts. The audio 2.0 stereo isn’t bad either. Everything is mixed pretty well, so the effects and dialogue are clear. There are no subtitles on the disc, but that isn’t an issue.
Along with the main feature, Camp Motion Pictures provided some special features for The Bone Garden. An audio commentary with Gutridge is the primary extra on the disc, and he appears to be quite a pleasant chap. Unlike most filmmakers, whose words are very discouraging for aspiring filmmakers, he at least has some positive things to say about the arduous task of filmmaking. Also included is Premiere Behind The Scenes, a 10 minute short film where various cast and crew members of the featured film reminisced about their experiences on set. Its name is undoubtedly unique but suggests that these interviews were done prior to a screening of the movie. This featurette also had no negative attributes, where everyone saying how much of a good time they have working on the film is something that could be considered entertaining. Additionally, there is a vault of additional Camp Motion Pictures trailers featuring other releases, and everyone’s favorite, a 2 minute trailer.
What can I say, The Bone Garden is somewhat fascinating for me as a low-budget horror movie. The film is very silly and not at all scary. The naively executed film makes you want it to succeed. I think this film works best as background noise while scrolling through your social media feeds or cooking. I understand that this is not the highest praise, but it is better than a lot of similar films I have watched recently.
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To watch more movies like THE BONE GARDEN (2016) visit hurawatch.