Bone Keeper, Co-Starring John Rhys-Davies

This creature has its own Patterson-Gimlin film. Everyone assumes it is a hoax, but viewers know better. So does Olivia Wheeler, because her missing-presumed-dead grandfather shot it—and then vanished (conveniently leaving the footage behind). She also thinks her mother disappeared down its cave in search of him, so she organizes an expedition to find some traces of them in Howard J. Ford’s Bone Keeper, which releases this Monday on digital in the UK.

According to the 2001-inspired prologue, the Bone Keeper has been terrorizing this inhospitable region of Scotland since the era of neanderthals. Lately, the Lovecraftian monster has developed a habit of consuming Wheelers. Nevertheless, the Wheeler granddaughter is determined to continue throwing good family-members after bad, so to speak.

Wisely, she has recruited a group of friends who are either abrasively annoying or interchangeably dull, so viewers won’t mind when the Bone Keeper starts snatching them up, one by one. Most of them condescendingly assumed they were humoring Wheeler, but they can’t say they weren’t warned. After all, they visited Prof. Harrison, the leading expert on the Bone Keeper, whom the locals dismiss as a crank. He did his best to dissuade Wheeler and her crew. Failing that, he encouraged them to simply try to bring back some physical proof.

Fortunately, the slimy, tentacled monster is pleasingly old school. The film is further blessed by veteran character actor John Rhys-Davies (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sliders), who brings instant credibility and class, as Prof. Harrison. Intuitively, an old pro like Rhys-Davies knew to turn up the volume and the intensity. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is charisma-challenged, at best.

Even though the multiple flashback prologues are amusing, the first act pacing still drags. Frankly, the most impressive aspect of Ford’s execution is simply that it maintains his prolificness a professional-grade B-movie filmmaker. Like River of Blood and The Ledge, Bone Keeper is watchable, but it is not nearly as grabby as the zombie films he made with brother Jon, starting with The Dead. It passes the time, but that is about it. For Rhys-Davies fans, Bone Keeper will be available on digital in the UK this coming Monday (4/6).