There's something strange going on in a lakeside town - grandmas are being murdered, nubile coeds are disappearing, Professor Hardy is skeezing on said coeds to the chagrin of his wife Alice, Alice's best friend Laurie is celebrating her divorce with a new Mustang convertible and sexing up all the young men she can find, and the Hardys have new neighbors but all Mr. And Mrs. Myers seem to do is argue. When Alice sees Mr. Myers dumping what looks like a body in the lake, she starts to suspect he may be behind the deaths and disappearances - but is it that simple?
Possible Spoilerish Paragraph: Of course it isn't, and that's the biggest problem with The Bone Garden. You know how sometimes filmmakers shoot three different endings for a movie to keep the killer a surprise? For some reason, The Bone Garden appears to have done that and then decided to just add them all into the third act. Up until that debacle, this is a fairly serviceable middle-aged slasher, which is an interesting twist on the formula. There's decent pacing and a strange mood that led me to think this might be a hidden gem, but the final act really kills any goodwill the first two thirds have generated.
The only real reason to watch The Bone Garden is for its various connections to the Friday the 13th franchise, with some nods to other genre films. Paul Kratka and Tracie Savage from Part 3 even star as the Hardys - and Alice Hardy's dog is named Jason. It was fun to spot the references, as names, shots, and entire lines of dialogue are lifted from those earlier films but without this extra layer, I doubt a casual viewer would find much to dig within The Bone Garden.
Possible Spoilerish Paragraph: Of course it isn't, and that's the biggest problem with The Bone Garden. You know how sometimes filmmakers shoot three different endings for a movie to keep the killer a surprise? For some reason, The Bone Garden appears to have done that and then decided to just add them all into the third act. Up until that debacle, this is a fairly serviceable middle-aged slasher, which is an interesting twist on the formula. There's decent pacing and a strange mood that led me to think this might be a hidden gem, but the final act really kills any goodwill the first two thirds have generated.
The only real reason to watch The Bone Garden is for its various connections to the Friday the 13th franchise, with some nods to other genre films. Paul Kratka and Tracie Savage from Part 3 even star as the Hardys - and Alice Hardy's dog is named Jason. It was fun to spot the references, as names, shots, and entire lines of dialogue are lifted from those earlier films but without this extra layer, I doubt a casual viewer would find much to dig within The Bone Garden.
