There’s something off about The Bondsman from the jump, like the guy at the party who is trying a little too hard. Blumhouse’s latest is ostensibly an action horror series with elements of comedy. In reality, it dips a toe in all 3 genres, but doesn’t seem to care too much about any of them. The jokes don’t land; the fights are bland and the horror only comes in too-short bursts of blood and gore. It’s Evil Dead with all the fun taken out.
Our Ash is Hub Halloran, a backwoods bounty hunter who dies almost immediately in the first episode. Brought back to life, Hub soon discovers that he now works for Satan himself. We never actually meet the big man, instead Hub mainly deals with middle manager Midge (Jolene Purdy) who tasks him with finding some demons that recently escaped from Hell. In between battles with the forces of evil, Hub also has to attend to his aging mother Kitty (Beth Grant) and ex-wife Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles). His problems with Maryanne are doubled by her boyfriend Lucky (Damon Harrison), who orchestrated Hub’s murder. It’s a surprising amount of personal drama for a half-hour show.
The Bondsman spends too much time on the uninteresting elements of Hub’s personal life. It bogs down the show’s actual premise of “guy hunts demons.” In fact, you rarely get a lot of demonic action in a given episode. This could come down to the show’s budget. Once you see the “monster of the week” in the first act, you know they won’t be back until the third. There’s very little time spent on developing these demons or making them seem formidable in any proper way. Even the basic rules of how to defeat them are vague. It’s a supernatural show that hates being one.
That lack of interest extends to the actors too. Most of the cast are sleepwalking through their scenes. This is especially true of our lead. For Kevin Bacon, hell is being in The Bondsman. He delivers every line with the weariness of someone who would rather be anywhere else. In Bacon’s defense, the writing only adds to that sense of fatigue. There’s a distinct lack of fun or charm that really sells the show’s premise short.
Ultimately, The Bondsman’s greatest sin is that it’s boring. The clash of tones and the lack of any cohesive world-building drag the program down. Couple that with some lackluster action and dull performances and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. The show only seems to let loose when it’s time for the gore to come out. There’s no shortage of blood, but even that thrill grows stale by the end of this 8 episode run. Sometimes dead is better. The Bondsman is proof of that.
The Bondsman is currently streaming on Prime Video.