‘Bone Face’ Review: A Murder Mystery Masquerading as a Slasher
Bone Face delivers a good mystery for viewers who prefer detecting over slashing in their whodunit-slasher films.
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What is Bone Face About?
Bone Face takes a whodunit-style slasher movie and makes solving the mystery of the killer’s identity the entire focus of the story.
Around midnight, a masked killer known as Bone Face slaughtered a bunch of counselors at Camp Marigold. First on the scene are a sheriff and deputy who track the killer’s movements to a nearby 24-hour diner. The problem is, they don’t know which of the current diners or staff members is actually Bone Face hiding in plain sight. While they wait for backup to arrive, Sheriff Cronin and Deputy McCully question everyone, determined to not let anyone leave until the killer is revealed.
Bone Face was written and directed by Michael Donovan Horn. The sheriff and deputy are played by Jeremy London and Elena Sanchez respectively. The suspects in the diner are played by Alli Hart, Jared Bankens, Miles Doleac, Artrial Clark, Laura Cayouette, Escalante Lundy, Betsy Borrego, Elise Greene, David Kallaway, and Ritchie Montgomery.
Bone Face Review
The biggest strength of Bone Face is its characters. Which is good, because without an interesting and diverse cast of characters, a murder mystery like this would be incredibly dull. Once the movie settles into its main setting in the diner, it quickly establishes a good baseline for everyone involved in the investigation. Everyone feels distinct and memorable. From the angry sheriff, to the femme fatale, to the family man and everyone else in-between, every character feels instantly recognizable yet mysterious enough to keep us hooked on hearing how their stories unfold.
The mystery is also handled well for the most part. Occasionally there will be a bit of information that feels like it’s being set up as something vitally important only to be a dead end, but red herrings are a perfectly viable part of stories like this. Mostly though, if you pay careful attention, you might start to have some solid guesses as to who the killer is. The number of realistic suspects is left fairly wide open, but it’s not an impossible mystery to solve before the movie reveals who it is. That makes it fun to play along as a viewer and try to outguess the movie, which is often the best part of this kind of film.
That said, it does ultimately seem like the writers felt the need to distract and mislead viewers more than was absolutely necessary. Nothing specific can be said about it here without spoiling a good chunk of the movie, but there are a few too many coincidences in the movie’s resolution which stretch the story’s believability a little too much. The finale is good, but it goes too far out of its way for shock and surprises when it didn’t need to. The surprises also lead to a large information dump at the end which drags the mood down a bit.
Overall though, Bone Face is a fun whodunit with a clever hook. Hopefully someone else can take up the Bone Face mantle and we can get a sequel. A series of slasher whodunits like this would be fantastic!
Bone Face Rating and Recommendation
Star Rating: 3 out of 5
Fans of murder mysteries should definitely check out Bone Face. If you’re looking for slashing, you’ll only really find it in the first few minutes of the movie, but what’s there is done well.
Bone Face is currently available to stream on TVOD platforms including Amazon Prime Video.
Further Reading
- Bystanders Review: A Unique Twist on Revenge
- Bloody Axe Wound Review: A Cute and Gory Coming-of-Age Slasher Comedy
- Stupid Games Review: An Engrossing Supernatural Chamber Piece
- Best Campground Slasher Movies
- Best Murder Mystery Movies
- New/Upcoming Horror Movies
- Best and Worst Horror Movies of 2025
