Bone Tomahawk

In the 1890s, two drifters, Purvis (David Arquette) and Buddy (Sid Haig), make a living robbing and killing travelers. Spooked by the sound of approaching horses, they hide in the hills and encounter a Native American burial site. Buddy is killed, and Purvis escapes.

Eleven days later, Purvis arrives in the small town of Bright Hope and buries his loot. Chicory (Richard Jenkins), backup deputy, notices him and reports to Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell). At the town's saloon, Hunt confronts Purvis. When asked his name, Purvis gives an alias, then tries to escape, only to be shot in the leg by Sheriff Hunt. Hunt sends John Brooder (Matthew Fox), to fetch the town's doctor. Meanwhile, foreman Arthur O'Dwyer (Patrick Wilson) rests at home with a broken leg, tended by his wife Samantha (Lili Simmons), the doctor's assistant. As the doctor is drunk, Brooder calls on Samantha and escorts her to the jail to treat Purvis. Leaving Samantha with Purvis and his deputy Nick (Evan Jonigkeit), Hunt and the others return home. That night, at a stable house, a stable boy is murdered.

The murder is reported to Hunt, who investigates and finds the horses missing. He goes to the jail and finds it empty, with an arrow left behind. Hunt informs Arthur of the news. A local Native American man called "the professor" (Zahn McClarnon) examines the arrow and links it to a troglodyte clan. He warns Hunt that they are a group of cannibalistic savages who inhabit the "Valley of the Starving Men". Certain that Samantha, Nick, and Purvis had been captured by them, Hunt prepares to go after the clan along with Chicory and Brooder. Arthur, despite his broken leg, insists on accompanying them to find his wife.

Days into their ride, two strangers stumble across their camp. Fearing they are scouts for a raid, Brooder kills them. They set up a cold camp at another spot. However, during the night, a group of raiders ambushes them, injures Brooder's horse and steals the rest. Brooder regretfully puts down his horse. The next day a fight breaks out between Brooder and Arthur, exacerbating Arthur's leg wound. Chicory sets his leg and leaves him to recover, while he, Hunt, and Brooder continue.

Reaching the valley, the three men are injured by a volley of arrows. After killing two attackers, Hunt and Chicory retreat, leaving Brooder, who is seriously injured and demands to be left behind. Brooder kills one attacker before being killed himself. The attackers capture Hunt and Chicory and imprison them in their cave. The men find Samantha, and an injured Nick, imprisoned in a nearby cage. They inform Hunt that the tribesmen have already killed and eaten Purvis. They witness Nick removed from his cell, stripped, brutally scalped, and bisected alive, then consumed. Samantha estimates the number of hostile cannibals to be around twelve (reduced to nine earlier by Hunt's posse).

Hunt realizes he has some opium tincture he confiscated from Arthur earlier to prevent him from overusing it. They trick several tribesmen into drinking it, however only one overdoses and dies while another becomes unconscious. Meanwhile, Arthur wakes up, follows the men's trail and discovers the valley. He kills two tribesmen and notices an object embedded in their windpipes. After cutting one out, he realizes that it acts as a whistle. He blows on it, luring another tribesman close, then kills him.

In the cave, realizing two of their men were poisoned, the leader grows angry. He and another tribesman pull Hunt from his cell, cut open his abdomen and shove the opium flask (heated by the fire) into the wound, and shoots him in the arm and abdomen with a rifle. Arthur arrives and kills one of the tribesmen, while Hunt decapitates the leader with one of the tribe's bone tomahawks. Arthur frees Samantha and Chicory, while a mortally wounded Hunt stays behind with a rifle. He promises to kill the surviving cannibals when they return, to prevent them from terrorizing Bright Hope. As the three leave the cave, they see two pregnant women, who are blinded and have all their limbs amputated.

On their journey out, Arthur blows the tribesman's whistle, and with no response, they continue to exit. At a distance from the cave, they hear three gunshots, implying that Sheriff Hunt had killed the remaining men of the tribe. Chicory acknowledges the gunshots with a half-hearted smile and tosses aside the rock he had been carrying as a weapon.

In August 2015, RLJ Entertainment acquired distribution rights to the film,[11] which had its world premiere at the Fantastic Fest on September 25, 2015.[4] On October 3, 2015, it screened at the Charlotte Film Festival.[12] It was then screened at the London Film Festival on October 10, 2015,[13] before its limited release on October 23, 2015.[14]

• Bone Tomahawk at IMDb