Just what I expected

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Dr. Zack Straker (Scott Bairstow), geek squad adventurer travels to the Nabib Desert on a service call after some mining techs go missing. They find bones stripped of all flesh and, eventually walking bones.This South African horror film is worth watching just for the desert scenery, although I cannot fathom how the beautiful Rachel Shelley ("The L Word") manages to come out of a sandstorm without a mark when she was walking with bare arms. Sorry, guys and gals, but nothing else got bare.Jason Wulfsohn's first feature indicates that he may have a good future in horror.The creature was awesome, and the composition will blow your mind.

"The Bone Snatcher" starts out extremely promising, with the introduction of a new and original type of unseen evil as well as with the use of the sublimely isolated filming location of the African desert. Whilst checking pipelines out in the desert, three miners are attacked and killed by a seemingly unworldly creature that devours their flesh and only leaves a pile of half-eaten bones. The expedition crew sent to rescue them discovers that the monster is a superiorly mutated ant-queen, and pretty soon they find themselves trapped in the uncanny desert as well. Director Jason Wulfsohn sustains a respectable level of tension just until the nature of the monster is identified. Immediately after that, the film rapidly turns into an ordinary creature-feature with all the characters dropping out of the survival-race one by one. The second half of "The Bone Snatcher" is unendurably boring; with the inevitable love-story clichés as well as a complete absence of gory murder set pieces. The characters all are insufferable stereotypes that act and say exactly what you predict several minutes in advance. There's the rookie who has to prove himself, the female with brain-capacity apart from her hot looks, the obnoxious experienced guy who redeems himself at the end through self-sacrifice and – last but not least – who could forget the wise black guy who refers to the monster using all kind of voodoo names. Wulfsohn tries too hard to make his monster look like the outer space menaces of "Alien" and "Predator". The ant-creature has infrared-vision and crumbles when shot at, yawn! The movie actually just benefits from its unique setting and the handful of nasty images of decomposed bodies. This could have been a modest gem, but instead it's less than mediocre. Avoid.

"The Bone Snatcher" is all that engrossing a creature feature.**SPOILERS**Hoping to find a cause for a series of strange disappearances, Dr. Zach Straker, (Scott Bairstow) is sent to South Africa and is placed on an expedition with fellow workers Mikki, (Rachel Shelley) Karl, (Warrick Grier) Titus, (Patrick Shai) and Kurt, (Andre Weideman) to a previous expedition's campsite. Finding only bloody remains and strange pock-marked tracks in the sand, they suspect a crew member went berserk rather than the evidence that points to something else. The group is eventually stranded in the desert and wait out until they can get rescued, and eventually comes under attack from a small army of flesh-eating ants. After having survived a series of attacks from the ants, which they learn could assume human size using discarded bones, they try to find a way to battle the voracious insects.The Good News: There wasn't a whole lot here that was worthwhile, but it was decent enough. The story is actually pretty clever, and actually has some potential with a cool creature premise and a unique setting. The main idea for the monster is a fairly clever twist, and it allows for a couple of great moments. The two night-time attacks are the main examples, and are pretty clever. The desert does at times look very foreboding and some great atmosphere is derived from it in the beginning. Other than that, though, that's about it.The Bad News: A couple of decent scenes aside, there isn't a whole lot either. The fact that there's so much time in between attacks in the film is hardly acceptable, as it wastes time by having the characters doing absolutely nothing. All we get is pointless bickering and wandering around the desert, and that's all there is. The first half moves very slowly and doesn't really do much to alter that. It's hard to sit through when the monster isn't on-screen. The monster itself isn't that threatening to begin with, being on-screen for only a couple times throughout the film and that really takes the fear out of it. The incredibly short attack scenes are over so fast that they're over before you have a chance to really see what's going on, and they're all really underwhelming. There's a couple of other little things here and there that weren't that spectacular, and don't really need explaining.The Final Verdict: A nice concept and an original creature don't mean much of it's not on-screen or attacks so non-eventfully. It had potential, which is sad as it could've been so much better, so give it a shot if you enjoy the Sci-Fi Channel films or enjoy the lower end of the scale of films.Rated R: Language and Violence

My jaw fell so many times watching this flick, I have bruises. Okay, granted, I really wasn't expecting the quality of, say, The Others or even Thirteen Ghosts (the new one, which was just dreadful and is still head and shoulders above this insanity). Someone else noted the thin characters...I wouldn't call them "thin". "Thin" implies there might be something to them. How about almost non-existent? In no particular order we have: The Girl Who Will Scream; The American Who Will Figure It All Out; The Macho Guy Who Will Just Bull Through Everything Until He Gets Killed: The Wise Black Man Who Will Die Early; The Extra Guy Who Is There To Die First; The Extra Woman Who Is There To Play Tough. That's it. That's your character list and that is what they are and what they remain from beginning to end. If they were "thin" they might, at least, change a little bit from beginning to end. But they don't. Well, okay, the American guy decides he's going to stay with the fieldwork at the end and the Screaming Girl goes back to wherever she came from. That's the change. Other than that, they all act according to their assigned roles and rarely betray any real emotion when they finally meet up with the menace.Now, the producers get props for an original menace, I will say. I had understood the story was going to be "Tremors" but with ants instead of giant worms. I give the writer credit: these are very cool, very scary ants and what they do with bones is excellent. (The first time the "bone snatcher" appear, I admit I jumped a few feet.)Unfortunately, the very cool concept becomes Alien in the Desert very quickly. We get a lot of commentary on ants that may or may not be true, but we don't get much of the mythology on which the menace is based. And we get every monster movie cliché ever made. People go into places they know they shouldn't and when they have no compelling reason to. Moronic characters try to hinder our heroes and die for it. One character does double duty as "scientist who doesn't want to kill the monster but study it". A Very Cool Gadget is introduced only so the American can tell everyone something about ants that, gee, I hope everyone knows anyway. Then the gadget is broken. Our heroes run out of the one thing that can keep the menace at bay. And then there is that final, annoying moment when we know the menace is still with us--and wonder exactly what and how the hey the hero or heroine came by it. It completely renders everything that went before as useless and false.Three stars for the cool use of ants and bones. Nothing at all for clichés, clunky dialogue and dim bulb characters.