Ten years after the harrowing events of Bone Tomahawk shocked and fascinated fans of both Westerns and horror, writer-director S. Craig Zahler returns with a brutal, unnerving, and philosophically dense sequel: Bone Tomahawk: Blood Trail (2025).
Set several years after the events of the original, Blood Trail follows Sheriff Chicory (played once again by a weary and melancholic Richard Jenkins) as he emerges from retirement to help track a series of horrific mutilations near the frontier town of Malady Creek. Survivors speak of ghostlike figures, bone ornaments, and inhuman screeches—echoes of a past Chicory thought buried for good.
Joining him is Harlan Price, a half-native scout haunted by his own tribe’s stories of the "Shadow Clan"—a splinter group of the troglodytes believed to have survived the massacre depicted in the original film. Their journey leads into uncharted desert canyons, where madness, ancient vengeance, and colonial guilt fester like an open wound.
While Bone Tomahawk (2015) was praised for its slow-burn pacing and terrifying final act, Blood Trail leans deeper into psychological horror and mythic dread. Zahler maintains his signature style: long, poetic dialogue exchanges, bursts of extreme violence, and morally gray protagonists. But this time, the horror feels more cosmic—suggesting something older than man, buried in the rocks and bones of the desert itself.
The cinematography is both stark and painterly—every wide shot of sun-bleached stone and skeletal remains reminds us that the American frontier was never empty, only silenced. The film’s haunting score, composed by Zahler himself, pulses with dread and echo, like a heartbeat buried beneath the dust.
Standout performances include Michael Greyeyes as Price—his quiet intensity and cultural duality give the film its moral core—and Jenkins, whose return as Chicory offers a tragic, broken-hearted perspective on heroism and survival.
If Bone Tomahawk was about rescue and savagery, Blood Trail is about reckoning. It questions whether vengeance ever ends, and whether civilization is anything more than a thin skin stretched over cruelty.
Not for the faint of heart, Blood Trail is a slow, searing, unforgettable ride—one that honors the original while carving deeper into the American nightmare.
