Review by C.J. Bunce
Watch the new Prime Video horror series The Bondsman and see if you agree: Audiences haven’t seen Kevin Bacon like this since the 1990 monster movie movie Tremors. This is the Kevin Bacon we like best, not the guest villain in X-Men, RIPD, or Hollow Man. He’s also not the cool lead type of Footloose, A Few Good Men, or Apollo 13, but the balance of his latest role as bounty hunter Hub Halloran seems to have a lot of the human infused in this unique character. He’s a good guy who loves his ex-wife a little too much, to the point of making a life-altering mistake that makes him a bad guy–a mistake that literally takes him to Hell and back. If you miss shows like Grimm, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Boo, Bitch!, or Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and you appreciate the artistry of gore by Hollywood’s special effects artists like that found in Ash vs. Evil Dead and Hysteria! and you’re looking for your next horror fix, you’ll want to try The Bondsman. It’s not as iconic or as sharply written as any of those shows, but it’s a short, quick, and fun ride.
Bacon is known for his separate music career and he gets to bring that into this show, as his ex Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles) have both a past in performing in local country music bars and there’s a future sought out by Maryanne and their son Cade (Maxwell Jenkins). So despite this season telling its story in eight half-hour episodes, showrunner Erik Oleson finds room for Bacon and Nettles to sing. For those who don’t like the country thing, don’t worry, it’s not that much.
But something about Bacon here feels like this is a spiritual sequel to Tremors. Maybe it’s the rural nature of the setting (somewhere near Podunk, Georgia), the supernatural battle, or Bacon working his way uphill the entire time. Bacon’s Hub Halloran is murdered in the first episode, and if you don’t know anything about the series you’re going to be left a little puzzled. But soon enough you’ll learn this is about the devil and demons and contracts with the devil in the spirit of Crossroads and Rumpelstiltskin and similar stories. Hub doesn’t make the deal actually, but he soon has no choice. He’s brought back to life to use his bounty hunting skills as a bail bondsman to claim souls for the devil. Jolene Purdy plays Midge, his handler and intermediary in a pyramid scheme system where Hub is destined to lose no matter what he does.
Thankfully Hub has his supporting and savvy mom to assist. That’s veteran genre actor Beth Grant as Kitty Halloran in what may be her best performance yet. She’s gritty and earthy and all things Southern as she defends her flawed boy, plants evidence to frame someone to help him, and she’ll take up arms or go to jail and go all badass for Hub if she must. Quarry and The Tourist’s Damon Herriman is the show’s villain, Maryanne’s current beau Lucky Callahan (yes, all the names sound like they came from the obvious catalog of goofy Southern barroom brawl names). Lucky shows that you don’t have to be capital “E” Evil to be an evil bastard. Look for Magnum PI’s Jay Ali as one of the handlers, and Denitra Isler as the sheriff.
The series is full of all kinds of gore, from disembodied, disemboweled, explosions–you name it, the makeup department earned its pay here. Demons are apparently like zombies, and the brain must go to defeat them. Chainsaws apparently work. Bacon does his best Bruce Campbell vibe throughout the series, leaning into his put-upon, craggy best.
The audience doesn’t get to know all the rules of the supernatural here, because like in Beetlejuice, the handbook doesn’t get read. This isn’t The Outsider or The Mothman Prophecies, but you get a taste of the dark world Hub is left to fight his way out of. The final episode is the best, delivering an unexpectedly good payoff that paves the way for a second season. With Bacon’s involvement it should be a shoo in. The Bondsman could have been edited into a movie–usually this kind of story is better for a one-hour show and chopping it into eight Bacon bits doesn’t seem to be the best delivery format.
The latest dark action series is here. Kevin Bacon fans won’t want to miss it. The Bondsman is now streaming on Prime Video.
