213 Bones

It’s hard to find an original angle for slasher films in 2025. Many of the more prominent features come with a heavy dusting of parody, or rely on ever-increasing supernatural crutches to escalate horror – often at the expense of story and coherence. 213 Bones prefers to go back to basics with its grounded college setting, and frames its grizzly murders around a whodunnit story structure that make it a throwback to classics such as Scream.

It follows a group of anthropology students whose local college is terrorised by a masked killer. Students such as Lisa (Luna Fujimoto) and Brent (Hunter Nance) set out on their own investigation whilst their Teacher Kelly (Colin Egglesfield) and local police Sheriff Bracco (Ernest Walker) and Deputy Freeman (Adara Toop) hunt the killer. As more and more students drop dead, it becomes clear that the murderer is closer to the survivors than they think.

213 Bones is an admirable but sadly uninspired effort at capturing the brilliance of its classic slasher-mystery predecessors. It’s hard to get invested in the hunting down of its young cast of victims when none of them receive any real character development. Hunter Nance’s socially awkward Brent and weed-loving couple Eric (Liam Woodrum) and Joanna (Simone Lockhart) are the most interesting of the bunch, but audiences will struggle to forge much of a connection outside of this. Neither do any of them fully embody the classic slasher-cast stereotypes that they merely skirt around the edges of – the jock, the overly-innocent girl, the castoff. Characters instead come across as hollow allusions.

Similarly, the mystery at the film’s heart also lacks inspiration. It works as a vehicle, delivering a coherent plot which viewers won’t feel ripped off from and raises just enough possible candidates before the big unveiling. But there is nothing especially complex or gripping about the killer’s motives and viewers are unlikely to come away with a sense of real satisfaction – and an eye-roll inducing juxtaposition-dump at the conclusion is a real underlining of this. Whilst the script itself is largely fine, it falls flat as the characters learn of their classmates’ gruesome murders – some reactions more akin to being told their fridge was left open that day. For a film that intends to play its story straight, it is a disappointing omission not to allow the cast to let the emotional impact of their losses leave more of an impression.

The murderer’s design is back-to-basics – a menacing but low-key masked façade that is believable without being extravagant or clearly aimed for virality. Murder sequences themselves are quite restrained – plenty of characters meet a deadly fate but the director never truly lingers with the blood and guts. Fans who enjoy the gore might come away feeling short-changed, but those who prefer the mystery element won’t be as offended by the

omission.

Whilst it suffers from lack of inspiration and really offers nothing that even casual horror fans will not have seen before, 213 Bones is not a bad movie, and its influence from slasher mysteries from the turn of the millennium is clear to see through director Jeffrey Primm’s presentation that doubles as a tribute to these films and successful to implantation of youthfulness in the film. It is a terrible shame that the director’s passing means that we will not be able to see what he could have done with a stronger script or more developed characters, but 213 Bones shows potential, and at least aims towards a style of horror that feels at risk of being left behind.