Ash and Bone

This really deserves maybe a 3/10 at the absolute max, but obvious fake reviews and ratings will deceive people into thinking it's worth watching. It's not.

I have nothing against low budget indie films. Unfortunately this one is simply not good. The acting is bad, the characters and the script are bad, the story is so predictable and really not that interesting. This feels like something that's been done many times before.

The final scene was just weird and out of place.

I really don't have anything positive to say about this movie. Don't waste your time with it, and definitely don't believe the 9 and 10 star ratings and reviews.

Okay horror about a family that leaves Detroit to stay at the old family cabin in the country. It's step-mom, dad and the daughter, who has a chip on her shoulder and is in the throes of rebellion against her daddy, partly because her mom died? Anyway, miss goth/metal daughter steals daddy's car, hits the local watering hole in the country village with her trusty fake ID, picks up a couple of new friends, and they go exploring in the nearest scary house, except, and I know people do dumb things in horrors, it's my favorite genre, but just how stupid is you if you go into a haunted house to explore when people still live in the house? Anyway, there's all sorts of family gruesomeness and sex-serial-killing and cannibalism in that house, but there's only one good thing either there or in this movie and that is Erika Hoveland as the bad-girl in the bad-family.

Well, at least the cover/poster for "Ash and Bone" looked interesting.

But I am getting ahead of myself here. I stumbled upon the 2022 horror movie "Ash and Bone" here late in 2022. And with it being a movie that I hadn't aready seen, and with me assuming it was a horror movie from the cover, then of course I had to see what writer Bret Miller and director Harley Wallen had to offer.

And it wasn't actually a whole lot. The script and storyline in "Ash and Bone" was mundane and bland. There wasn't much of anything exciting, scary or thrilling going on throughout the 97 minutes that the movie ran for, and that made it a rather prolonged movie experience to sit through.

I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, and that is something that I enjoy when watching movies; getting to see new talents on the screen. And while the performers didn't have an abundance of workable material from the script, character gallery and dialogue, then they actually still managed to put on fair enough performances.

Visually then you're not in for a particular grand treat here. "Ash and Bone" is not a movie that makes use of a lot of special effects, so don't get your hopes up on that account.

This is not a horror movie that I would recommend for fans of the horror genre, because it was a pretty weak foray into the genre. Ultimately then the movie's cover/poster was the best thing about this ordeal.

My rating of director Harley Wallen's 2022 movie "Ash and Bone" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

I like indie films. But right from the beginning I knew it was a mistake to stream this film. The direction is rudimentary and continues to be so for the remainder of the slow movie.

The cast is a little confusing too because the stepmother looks like she's the same age as the dad's goth daughter.

And the crypt keeper bar tender has the weirdest hair on the planet. I think they dyed his scalp black and his grey hair is poking thru!!!! Not kidding.

And that brings us to the acting, which is pretty bad. The writing is not great, but it could have been under the helm of a more talented wordsmith.

In other words, it could have beeen a way better movie with talent across the board.

I got reeled in by the good reviews but suspect most of them aren't impartial. This movie is slow paced and there's nothing that you haven't seen a hundred times before. It's not bad enough to turn off but not good enough to enjoy, which is a particular type of torment.

I've no issue with indie horror and have some in my top 10 but unfortunately this isn't one of them, or indeed in the top 100.

There's a lack of action, gore and even the storyline doesn't provide anything worthwhile. If there was a generic horror storyline app then this is what it would produce. Best avoided and not with the time.