Director: Andre Alfa
Writer: Stephen George (Screenplay)
Starring: Ashley Whelan Richie Stephens, Laura Flannery, Brittany Lucio, Bryan McClure, Jonathan Fuller, Terry Milam, Creek Wilson
Plot: One hundred years after being wrongly executed, two black brothers return from the grave to avenge their deaths and reclaim their land.
Tagline – You can’t bury the past
Runtime: 1 Hour 28 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Blackstock Boneyard starts when Lyndsy (Whelan) and a group of her friend’s head to the town of Blackstock, to take care of some legal material, which will see her inherit part of a property that has a history of violence. The locals want the land for themselves, with the Rampage family wanting to take the whole lot of Lyndsy’s hands.
Unaware to Lyndsy the rest of the town has a deep dark secret about the land, and now the two brothers who were executed 100 years ago have come back from the grave for revenge.
Thoughts on Blackstock Boneyard
Characters & Performances – Lyndsy is from outside of town and has come to the small town for an inheritance, along with her friends she is a big city woman that isn’t always comfortable in the small town setting. She is unaware of the past events in the town and once she comes under threat, she looks to do the right thing. Ashley Whelan does well in her role through the film, with her performance being the best of the bunch. Jesse is a local that fills in the history for Lyndsy, while offering up the love interest. When we get into the next group of character, we have the generic friends of Lyndsy, who are mostly all pretty forgettable, the locals who want the land, who are a mix of back dated racist figures in a world long time forgotten. Nobody stands out here, with a lot being way over the top with what we get.
Story – The story here follows a young woman who learns she has inherited a piece of property, leading her to travel to a small-town with a big history to claim it, only to find herself just as much of a target for the dead who have come back to reclaim what was taken from them. One paper this did look like a version of Candyman, with the racial tones of what happened in the past, being the motive for the return, only to leave us feeling confused about why everyone seemed to be so wrong in the situation. The story didn’t seem to add on in the way it was intended and by the end you will be left watching a fun enough slasher, without connecting everything together.
Themes – Blackstock Boneyard is a horror slasher with the figure rising from the grave to get revenge, in a host of different bloody ways. If you were to watch it just for the violence in the horror side of things, this is one that can get some enjoyable, with the small-town setting showing us just how backwards certain parts of the world can still be.
Blackstock Boneyard wants to capture the magic of Candyman, but only falls short in the story, being saved by the violence in the slasher side of the film.