BUTCHERS: BOOK THREE – BONESAW (2024)

New On Demand and digital download from Blue Fox Entertainment!
Directed by Adrian Langley.
Written by Adrian Langley, Daniel Weissenberger.
Check out the trailer here!!

For the past two films of the BUTCHERS series, the premise has been about a group of people who find themselves lost in the backwoods of America and run into a cannibalistic family. It’s an ok concept, not the most original, but my issue with BUTCHERS: BOOK TWO – RAGHORN, was that it was very much like a faded carbon copy of the original excellent film. The action wasn’t as good as the first one and neither were the characters. It felt like New Coke compared to Classic.

At least BUTCHERS: BOOK THREE – BONESAW tries something new and brings the maniacs to the victims. In this third installment, a psychopath in a meat wagon stalks the night streets in search of fresh meat to sell to a twisted pig farmer. This time our cast of victims are made up of employees of a small-town strip club and a lady cop that is a few steps behind our slasher on the go.

As I said before, I really am rooting for the BUTCHERS series and don’t mind doing a deep dive into it to figure it all out. The first one is fantastic, unpredictable, and acted in a way that is better than it should have been. BOOK TWO is a notch down from that, still trying to tell the same story, but a watered down version of it. BOOK THREE is a step in the right direction as it changes the setting for the carnage, which is a step in the right direction. No longer are people running through the woods. This one has more of an urban setting with victims running down dark streets, through abandoned parking lots, and maze-like alleyways. The change helps distinguish BUTCHERS BOOK THREE from the previous ones and this changeup helps making it a more watchable film.

The problem is that the characterization and acting has taken a huge leap downward. Sure, it’s fun to see the plasticized and bouncy strippers running away from a madman in high heels and a tube dress. But man, these gals are terrible actresses. And with the bar raised so high in the first film and even parts of the second film in terms of likable and despisable characters, the decline in talent is a shame. And while the first and second film at least tried to give the madmen personalities, BONESAW’s killer, whose name is Bonesaw, I guess, is a silent killer whose face is obscured or off screen most of the time. I believe this role is played, once again, by actor Michael Swatton, who starred in all three BUTCHERS films in different roles. Swatton was pretty strong and held his own against the amazing Simon Phillips in the first BUTCHERS film. It’s too bad in BOOK TWO and THREE, Swatton plays mute characters under lots of makeup, instead of letting him simply act like a different character. I like it that he’s been in all of the movies, giving the BUTCHERS films a kind of HATCHET vibe, which is another film series that reuses characters in different ways.

In my review of BUTCHERS: BOOK TWO – RAGHORN, I expressed my confusion as to what the point of this franchise is supposed to be all about. BOOK TWO was basically the same as BOOK ONE with slightly different characters in a slightly different situation. But I guess, I got my answer in BUTCHERS: BOOK THREE – BONESAW. From what I take from it, the BUTCHERS series isn’t about a specific location or generations of the same family killing randos. It’s more about the similarity in plot elements that are present in each film. The action moves fast and just when you thought you knew who was going to survive, that person ends up meeting a grisly end and someone else becomes the final person. It’s those fluid rules of the slasher and unpredictability of the script that made the whole thing fun. This persists in BUTCHERS: BOOK THREE – BONESAW and ends up being the reason I am recommending this one. Sure, the acting is rough, but us horror fans are used to that. I’ll take rough acting with a script that moves fast and loose any old day.

I don’t know if BUTCHERS: BOOK THREE – BONESAW is the last of a trilogy or just another chapter in a long franchise. It’s gory as hell and director/co-writer Adrian Langley knows how to keep the pace moving and plot interesting. Here’s hoping a little more time is put to getting memorable actors in the next one, if there is going to be one, because that is the biggest detriment to this third chapter.