213 Bones Review (Frightfest 2025)
The shadow of Scream looms large over the slasher genre. Not only did Wes Craven’s classic deliver a deconstructive, subversively witty take on horror, it also worked as a genuinely frightening film, reshaping what slashers could be for a new generation. Jeffrey Primm’s 213 Bones clearly takes its cue from the likes of Scream and the late-90s wave of imitators like I Know What You Did Last Summer, but it fails to recapture that balance of surface-level self-awareness with actual scares.
Set in the early 1990s, the film follows a class of anthropology students who are set a challenge by their teacher – to conduct a forensic investigation on a fictional case study. Unfortunately, the intrigue in this opening set-up is quickly revealed to be a mere gimmick for kicking the film off, when it’s abandoned in favour of a generic slasher. The class are picked off one by one, with the killer marking their victims for death by leaving human bones on the scene. As the bodies pile up, the survivors scramble to work out the killer’s identity and uncover his motive.
Where 213 Bones succeeds is in its world-building and characterisation. The ‘90s setting is lovingly rendered – the costume and hair departments clearly had a ball recreating the era, and the soundtrack nails the vibe, with tracks from Siouxsie and the Banshees, Soundgarden, Duran Duran, and Bananarama that clearly set the scene. The setting does tend to feel like an excuse to sidestep modern complications, such as smartphones, but it does give the film an identity of sorts.
The young ensemble cast is briskly and vividly sketched in the opening scene, leaning unapologetically into archetypes. There’s the nerd, the stoner couple, the bad boy, the popular girl, the eccentric outsider, the hopeless crush, etc, and these are clear from the very start. The cast embrace these roles with varying results – some are disappointingly lacklustre, and there’s a shockingly wooden performance right at the film’s centre, but there are some standouts. Toni Weiss is particularly great, investing her immaculately coiffed queen bee with just the right balance of bitchiness and vulnerability. Allegra Sweeney is immediately endearing as a perpetually late student moonlighting as a waitress, while Mason Kennerly swaggers convincingly as the drug dealer improbably enrolled in anthropology. All three know exactly what film they’re in, and their commitment keeps things engaging even when the script falters.
The thing about slashers is, by and large, we know what’s going to happen. It’s not a matter of what will happen, but how it will happen. When you think of the Scream franchise, it’s not just the body count that comes to mind, but the inventive set-pieces, and the building sense of panic that make the murders feel inevitable yet still shocking. It’s not a spoiler to say that in 213 Bones, most of the young, beautiful cast end up dying, but the murder scenes unfold with a plodding predictability, utterly devoid of suspense or personality. They feel cursory, with little to no care going into making them memorable in any way.
Primm repeatedly makes the baffling decision to cut away before the murders, which is fine, but he also seems averse to any real sense of dread. This doesn’t come from any puritanical sense of not showing anything nasty, as later on we see an eye pop out – it’s just indicative of a fairly lazy, careless approach. He may as well have put “insert murder scene here” in the script. There’s one decent jump scare and some gruesome gore effects, but most of the kills are pedestrian and rushed through. Most egregiously, two of the most compelling characters are killed offscreen, with the news conveyed in just about the most offhand way possible, which does a disservice to the great character work the actors had done up to that point.
The mystery, such as it is, fares no better. The red herrings are painfully obvious (the creepy-looking assistant is so overly creepy-looking that he may as well have “not the killer” stamped on his forehead), and the real culprit’s identity is telegraphed from the start. An irreverent script and a subversive final reveal – riffing on themes of generational revenge that defined the very films 213 Bones wants to emulate – almost salvage things, but it’s not enough, and only reinforces the apathetic direction that characterises the film.
Superficially, 213 Bones has a lot going for it: a photogenic cast, glossy cinematography, bold archetypes, and a villain with a striking look. But beneath the sheen lies a fundamental problem – it’s simply not scary. The director starts with solid material but squanders it on an undercooked plot, uninspired kills and wasted characters. By the end, the overriding question isn’t “whodunnit?” but “what was the point?”
★★
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
About the Author
