Bone Keeper review

By David Dent

Imagine the cast of – and story from – the average Scott Jeffrey Jagged Edge production, beamed down into a movie with ten times that company’s budget, and the result is Ford’s latest movie.

Olivia (Sarah Alexander Marks) is searching for her mother, who has gone missing while on the hunt for her own father, an adventurer journalist who also vanished in the same place; a cave system on the Welsh border. All have been investigating the legend of the ‘Bone Keeper’.

Determined to track mum down using maps in family journals, Olivia teams up with some friends, and arranges a trip. Along for the ride are cocky TA trailed Ethan (Louis James), her friend Annabelle (Tiffany Hannam-Daniels), Nick (Tyler Winchcombe) and science nerds Nadia (Sophie Eleni) and Ravi (Danny Rahim). En route to meet Professor Harrison (John Rhys-Davies) they pick up a hitchhiking woman, travel blogger Ashley aka ‘Bitchhiker’ (Sarah T Cohen) whose addition can give the mission a bit of much needed publicity.

Harrison’s ‘be careful in the caves’ entreaties fall on deaf ears as Olivia and the gang tool up for a bit of spelunking; but the tentacular entity they discover deep in the rocks turns out to be nastier than any of them imagined.

Ford’s movie is one of two distinct halves. In the first the familiar bickering and emoting amongst friends is very familiar territory and for a while David Engellau’s score almost manages to drown out the drama. But when the caves loom into view (enigmatically filmed in the Forest of Dean) Ford really finds his feet. The underground scenes carry a real tension and the creature, a mix of CGI and practical effects, is impressive both in production and intent. 

I could have done without the rather silly prologue in which the origin of the creature is established (and a little more detail on how it manages its hybridity would have been welcome), but Bone Keeper manages to shrug off its early scenes and become a thoroughly nasty monster flick. 

Bone Keeper will have its World Premiere on 6th March at FrightFest Glasgow and on Digital Download from 6th April 2026.