Up-and-coming scientist, Dr. Zach, travels from Canada to Southern Africa where he, along with a group of miners, is tasked to find a trio of missing miners. Two of which they immediately find completely stripped to their bones. The third of which is inexplicably miles away from the other two. Now stranded deep in the desert, the unlucky crew must contend with an aboriginal monster that's stalking their every move.Offers up some tension and the acting is pretty adequate. I enjoyed the concept behind the monster, but the movie is hamstrung by a less than satisfying climax as well as a worse epilogue. My Grade: C-

This movie has several things to commend it. Good location, plausible players, decent script, good flow and continuity, nice photography, and a workable music score. All of these add to it. But what they didn't do, and so detract from it, is just as important. And what they didn't do was simple: They didn't bombard the viewer with a lot of bad computer generated special effects. They don't show you much, they leave the horror where it belongs. In the mind of the person watching. The next best thing they didn't do was over act. The players, given their circumstances, come off pretty natural. And thats another big plus. All in all? Given the avoidance of certain mistakes and the proper deployment of whats left ... This is a way cool flick.

Just watched this and was really surprised by how good it was. I'm really surprised by the low rating and negative comments on the IMDb. The creature effects were completely ace and the lead actor was totally hot. I'm gonna buy this on DVD. The scenery, photography and soundtrack were good enough to feature in a major studio production and the CGI effects were used sparingly and effectively.It did fall apart a little at the end when it seemed the film makers had boxed themselves into a corner and didn't know how to end their film and I didn't like the set up for a sequel ending.Overall though this was a good old-fashioned monster b-movie directed with some skill and was genuinely scary in places.My rating: 8

The Bone Snatcher starts in the 'Nambi Desert South Africa' where Clive (Sean Higgs), Paul (Langley Kirkwood) & Harvey (Jan Ellis) three diamond prospectors are, well prospecting for diamonds. Unfortunatelty for them they discover something rather nasty lurking under the sand... Jump to 'Vancouver British Columbia' where systems analyst Dr. Zack Straker (Scott Bairstow) is told that he has to go to the Namib Desert to do a bit of field work, analysing systems I guess. Jump back to the Namib Desert & Zack has arrived at 'Eland Mining', he has to pass security before he is driven to the main complex. The three prospectors have been reported missing & the security guys are going to pick them up on the way, attractive female Mikki (Rachel Shelly), Karl (Warrick Grier), Titus (Patrick Shai), Kurt (Andre Weiman) & the driver Magda (Adrienne Pierce) are the rescue team. It's not long before they run into the prospectors abandoned truck & nearby discover the remains of two of them, the bones stripped of all the flesh. Karl decides the third prospector was responsible & they set off in search of him but only find his bones as well, they also discover that there is something nasty out there lurking in the bleak isolation of the Desert...This English, Canadian & South African co-production was directed by Jason Wulfsohn & is fair to middling entertainment. The script by Malcolm Kohll & Gordon Render is a little slow to get going, after the three prospectors meet their ends at the start no-one else dies for over 40 minutes & is rather clichéd, the attractive female, the computer nerd, the tough macho guy, the religious nut-case there to add a supernatural spin on things &, of course, the disposable character's merely there to die & do very little else. The creature itself is disappointing in the sense that it turns out to be a collection of ants that steal peoples bones so they can use them as a skeleton & walk around, why exactly? Surely just walking across the ground would be just as efficient? Add that to the fact that all they want to do is find a new nest & aren't bothered about killing anyone it all becomes rather lacklustre & dull. I don't particularly understand the need to hunt them down & destroy them either, as I've said they don't purposely set out to kill anyone & they are buried deep in the Namib Desert far from civilisation. Having said that it provides fair entertainment & is far from the worse horror film ever but at the same time far from the best & in keeping with the rest of the film the climax is dull & by-the-numbers.Director Wulfsohn can't exactly do much with the monotonous Desert locations & it starts to get tedious to look at. Most of it takes place during broad daylight which doesn't help the atmosphere & it lacks any real tension or excitement. Forget about any gore because there isn't any, a few bones & someone has their arm devoured. The creature itself is a mixture of both CGI & traditional puppet effects which are decent enough & look OK.With a surprisingly healthy $6,000,000 budget The Bone Snatcher comes across as a missed opportunity & where did all the money go exactly? The entire thing is set in the Desert, the creature & CGI effects are used sparingly, there are no action scenes or big set pieces & no big name actors. Six big ones sounds like a lot of money considering what ended up on screen. The acting is annoying & most of the cast talk in thick South African accents which sometimes makes it a bit difficult to understand them.The Bone Snatcher is an OK way to pass 85 minutes but is far from spectacular, in fact average is the word I'd use. I can't say I hated it but I can't say I liked either, disappointing.