Kurt Russell’s Tombstone couldn’t be more different from his second best Western movie

Still starring in one classic western with the old-school gem tombstone in 1993, Kurt Russell Pivoted to a wildly different West with this subversive gory thriller Bone tomahawk. With apologies to Quentin Tarantino’s The hate eightWhich is a great Western whodunit in itself, the best Western that Russell has starred in since tombstone is S. Craig Zahler’s gruesome horror movie Bone tomahawk. It’s interesting to contrast the two, because they couldn’t be more different: one is a traditional Western through and through, while the other throws the genre playbook out the window.

While tombstone It has a lot of violence and death, it is depicted in a delicious way. The movie feels very much like a traditional Western; It’s a throwback to an era of Hollywood and the genre that, even in 1993, didn’t really exist anymore (albeit with some refreshing modern updates). Bone tomahawkOn the other hand, is an incredibly brutal, dark, ultraviolet neo-western matched with gory horror that challenges the norms of what the genre can be. Russell is just as captivating and charismatic in both, but tonally, stylistically and narratively, the two Westerns couldn’t have less in common.

Tombstone is a classic western, despite being made in the 1990s

Tombstone feels like it could have been made in the Golden Age of Hollywood

Released in 1993, tombstone is a biopic of Wyatt Earp covering all the key events of the iconic American lawman’s lifeFrom the gunfight at the OK Corral to the Earp Vendetta Ride. In the role of Earp, Russell leads a star-studded ensemble that also includes Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday, Sam Elliott as Virgil Earp, and Michael Biehn as Johnny Ringo. tombstone has been widely praised for its perfect pacing, powerful performances and stunning cinematography. Kilmer’s turn as Holliday has been hailed as one of the most memorable performances in movie history.

In the 90s, the heyday of the Western genre is long gone. During the late 60s and early 70s, at the dawn of the New Hollywood movement, anti-Western like McCabe & Mrs. Miller And Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid deconstructed the tropes of the genre, broke the unrealistic black-and-white good-versus-evil morality, and left the traditional Western in the rearview mirror. The biggest hit westerns of the ’90s, vi Unforgivenwere similarly bleak deconstructions of the genre’s conventions. But tombstone was different – this was not a brutal deconstruction of the classical West; It was a loving return to him.

Despite being made in the ’90s, tombstone Looks and feels like it could have been made in the 50s at the height of the genre’s popularity. The acting has a delightfully old-fashioned clip to itThe cinematography has the static framing and traditional camera setups of an old Hollywood classic, and The standard ethic of the good vs. evil story—the lawmen versus the troublemakers—feels like a refreshing throwback to a simpler time.. In an age when Westerns strove to modernize the genre, tombstone Arrived looking like a product of the Golden Age.

Kurt Russell’s Bone Tomahawk challenged what western movies could be

The bone tomahawk brought a level of gore that had never been seen before in the West

Released in 2015, Bone tomahawk is a unique genre cocktail that brings the gruesome thrills of the horror genre into a traditional Western – It’s like The searchers Meets Saw. Russell plays Sheriff Franklin Hunt, who leads a posse across the border in search of three men who have been kidnapped from his small town by a Native American clan. When they arrive in the desert area where the poor souls were taken, they are horrified to know that the clan is full of cannibals who are hungry for human flesh, and they may not make it out with their lives.

Bone tomahawk Wasn’t the first Westerner to experience horrific, blood-soaked violence. Sam Peckinpah featured plenty of gore in his gritty, gritty revisionist western epic The wild bunch In 1969. The surrealist spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci were defined by much more violence than the classical westerns that inspired them. The last gem in 1966 Django culminates in his title character picking off the bad guys by pushing his trigger against his lover’s grave with broken fingers. But Bone tomahawk Taking the violence further than even Leone, Corbucci, and Peckinpah.

It is a truly disturbing scene in Bone tomahawk In which one of the cannibals rips a man in half right in the middle, and Zahler shows the whole thing in its most horrific glory. By bringing another genre into the mix, Bone tomahawk Proved that the hundreds of previous Westerns have only scratched the surface of what could be done in the genre. In the years since, movies like Sulphur And The pale door have brought the unearthly terror of the horror genre into the traditional construct of a Western.

Tombstone is better than Bone Tomahawk, but both are great Westerns

Tombstone is one of the finest westerns ever made

While tombstone is better than Bone tomahawk – This is one of the finest westerns ever made – they are both great entries in the genre. tombstone Has all the hallmarks of a classic Golden Age Western, but with a few refreshing modern touches, like speeding up the pace and giving the female characters some agency. It has some of the best acting in the western genre and the cinematography and set design bring 1880s Arizona to life.

There is a lot of shock value in it Bone tomahawkIt’s gory violenceBut that’s not all the movie has to offer. The scenes of The passages that travel across the border into the clan’s territory give the audience a chance to really get to know the characters. Not only does this make it all the more horrifying when the pet characters start getting picked off; It ensures that Bone tomahawk Feels like a proper westernA la The searchers Or The Cowboys. Even if the horror elements were removed, it would still be a great western.

Tombstone & Bone Tomahawk prove that Kurt Russell is an all-time great western actor

Russell is up there with John Wayne & Henry Fonda

Although Kurt Russell has only starred in a handful of western movies, tombstone And Bone tomahawk These alone are enough to compare him as one of the all-time great western actors. By proving he could play both a traditional Western hero and a darker, more ambiguous antihero, Russell joined the ranks of John Wayne and Henry Fonda. The contrast between Wayne’s performances in Stagecoach And True sizeand Fonda’s performances in My darling Clementine And Once Upon a Time in the Westare comparable to the differences between Russell’s two best Westerns.