Sean Parker
As a child of the nineties, it’s amusing to me whenever new slasher films use the decade as part of their setting. While nothing is outright weird about exploring the time period, it just seems to me that The Silence of the Lambs defines early ‘90s slashers, and most late ‘90s slashers seem driven by inspiration from Wes Craven’s Scream. The late Jeffrey Primm and co-writer Dominic Arcelin take us back to 1993 for Primm’s directorial debut, 213 Bones, which also serves as the director’s curtain call. 213 Bones’ story combines the latter’s ensemble cast whodunnit with the former’s investigatory prowess while bringing a touch of Twin Peaks and The X-Files in the unveiling of a new slasher, who is luring a college class of forensic anthropologists to their deaths through a trail of human remains left around campus.
The story begins with some tropey slasher mainstays, a cold open featuring a sex scene and a subsequent shower scene with a couple adhering to a loose moral code surrounding the man’s wife –a minefield for whodunnit sleuths trying to navigate our killer’s motivation, as he dispatches them efficiently and brutally. A metal soundtrack takes over, sending us through a graphical credits sequence that has just a slightly too high a frame rate to establish it as ‘90s CGI. 213 Bones flings us forward two years to Bristol Falls College, a fictional college with an appropriate autumnal setting.
At the college, we find a Breakfast Club group of archetypal characters who seem to misfittingly work as a group because they’re all taking Mr. Kelley’s (The Client List’s Colin Egglesfield) anthropology class. Kelley’s latest class assignment is a bit theatrical, setting a game to get his students more involved and pretending that the bones of an undetermined origin had been found on the campus. Soon after, the class begins discovering new bones around the campus, and whenever one is found, a classmate’s corpse isn’t far behind. The police begin to suspect the killer is someone in Kelly’s class, leading these teens to trust no one as the body count rises.
213 Bones earns an extreme amount of praise in understanding the atmosphere of the time frame it’s taking on, eliciting moments of elation for any fans of ‘90s horror soundtracks. The movie uses tracks from alternative groups of the era like Soundgarden, Mudhoney, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Meat Puppets, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Duran Duran, and more. As someone who wore out his CDs spinning the movie music from the Scream Franchise, I Know What You Did Last Summer films, The Faculty, Spawn, The Crow, and Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies, I admire 213 Bones for creating an essential soundtrack worthy of a place among these banger discs.
As for the film itself, it’s enjoyable, but more for the nostalgic inference than as a horror film. The production design, tone, and cameras used within the film craft a fantastic feeling that you’re watching a lost nineties picture. The cast of fresh young faces includes Girl on the Third Floor’s Sarah Brooks, Luna Fujimoto, Toni Weiss, Liam Woodrum, Allegra Sweeney, Simone Lockhart, Elizabeth O’Brien, Hunter Nance, and Mason Kennerly, all of whom perfectly fit the casting of a ‘90s slasher whodunnit.
However, 213 Bones’ story never rises to the Scream level it’s modeled after, providing more of an experience akin to one of the adjacent films that followed it. 213 Bones feels more aligned with a Lover’s Lane, Cherry Falls, or Final Stab, movies that hold a special place in a horror lover’s heart, but maintain more of a B-movie quality, a convoluted plot, and a rather obvious face behind the mask. That, combined with the forensic anthropology angle, makes the film feel very similar to 2004’s Renny Harlin thriller, Mindhunters.
There’s really no obfuscation when it comes to who the killer is going to be. Early on, there are plenty of clues, as well as references made to the killer’s mask, to set any viewing sleuth in the right direction. 213 Bones throws a few red herrings at the viewer, but anyone focused on what’s happening on screen should put this case to bed early.
I made mention earlier of the peculiar time period the film sets itself in, and while movies like Scream and The Silence of the Lambs are fantastic, they are inextricable products of the time they were made. Whenever horror films throw it back to a pre-cell-phone and internet era, I often consider it a bit of a cop-out. These modern conveniences may present disharmony in a plot, so instead of dealing with them, writers set the backdrop at a time when they don’t need to. 213 Bones does a better job than most at maintaining the early ‘90s illusion, and even calls out their cell phone avoiding structure in the first ten minutes by providing one of the characters a Zack Morris phone.
Having a sense of humor about it may not negate the fact that 213 Bones does this, but the self-identifying tactic ticks the meta checkbox, allowing the viewer to move on and have a good time. And, given the titles I’ve already referenced, 213 Bones does play like more of a love letter to the films Primm and Arcelin likely watched thirty years ago, and there’s a lot of fun in that style of filmmaking.
Fun is the name of the game when it comes to 213 Bones. It isn’t the tightest or most impressive slasher anyone’s ever seen. Yet, some of the kills and little jump scares grant the film a vibrant intensity that, even while possibly knowing who is behind the mask, captures the viewer’s curiosity and bloodlust, wanting to stick around to see the next victim and to exclaim “I knew it” at the reveal.
It’s extremely unfortunate that Primm never had the opportunity to see the fruits of his labor. While critically, I would suggest 213 Bones is somewhere in the three out of five stars range, there is a lot of talent boiling underneath the surface of the film, and I would have been curious to see what paths that creativity would have taken the writer-director down in the future. Primm makes a cameo in the film, standing behind a pizza counter, exchanging pleasantries with two of the film’s actresses. His words, “Be careful, there’s a lot of weirdos out there,” herald the actresses’ impending doom like Crazy Ralph outside the gas station in Friday the 13th. Yet with sincerity, Primm’s motley character serves up a side of kindness, creating the perfect celluloid commemoration.
213 Bones held its World Premiere at FrightFest on Saturday, August 23. For more information on this and other films that played as part of the festival, please see the FrightFest website.
