“The Bondsman” Review – Kevin Bacon Slays Demons and Predictable Drama in Superficial Series

The logline for Blumhouse and Prime Video’s action horror series “The Bondsman” is an instant attention grabber. Kevin Bacon stars as a backwoods bounty hunter who gets a second lease on life when he’s resurrected by the Devil to hunt demons and send them back to Hell. That each of the eight episodes runs roughly 30-minutes long also suggests pulpy demonic fun. Despite a strong cast and a fascinatingly flawed antihero, though, showrunner Erik Oleson’s (“Daredevil”) series struggles with its truncated form and frequently puts its horror elements on the back burner. 

Bacon plays Hub Halloran, a rural Georgia bounty hunter who plays dirty when it comes to catching his targets. When we meet him, he’s flushing out his latest at a seedy motel with a hornet’s nest. Despite the calm confidence of doing the gig for so long, Hub is ambushed and meets a grisly demise. However, he resurrects a day later and soon finds that he’s now working under a new employer, the ruler of Hell himself, with plucky baker Midge (Jolene Purdy) as his direct supervisor. It should be a job that Hub excels at, but he tends to buck authority. Hub also can’t help but be distracted by his own murder that was ordered by Lucky (Damon Herriman, The Nightingale), a sordid schemer currently sleeping with Hub’s ex Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles, The Exorcist: Believer). There’s also the estrangement with his son Cade (Arcadian’s Maxwell Jenkins) and a guilty conscience chipping away at Hub.

Kevin Bacon (Hub Halloran), Alea Hansinger

“The Bondsman” harkens back to genre television from the ’90s and early aughts like “Supernatural,” with a monster-of-the-week structure that serves more as connective tissue to the increasingly tumultuous family drama. It’s the type of setup that feels well suited to its 30-minute episode format, except it’s all superficially rendered. In some ways, that’s probably for the best. The demonic plot is predictable: the escaping demons are part of an apocalyptic plan. “The Bondsman” is content to leave it at that, breezing through its demons-of-the-week carnage with the rough CG often drowning out the practical gore effects. Hub, who’s looking for a loophole in his unholy contract, wants nothing more than to quickly dispatch his latest demon assignment so he can get back to dealing with his personal issues. 

Whereas “The Bondsman” struggles to find a pulse with its horror elements, the drama fares slightly better. It takes quite a while for the inaugural season to integrate Hub’s ex and son, and often does so in clunky fashion, but scenes with his supporting mom Kitty (Beth Grant) fare much stronger thanks to Grant’s infectious blend of sassy toughness and comforting warmth. It also takes a while for Bacon to fully find his groove with Hub, a self-centered and morally dubious antihero. While the veteran actor makes easy work of playing the sarcastic, rough-around-the-edges bounty hunter with a sense of humor, it takes nearly a full season for the character to develop layers.

Refreshingly, Oleson and Bacon both realize that not enough time has passed for this character to earn redemption for the grave sins that landed him in the Devil’s crosshairs in the first place; where that leaves the series at the end of the first season offers up just enough to pique curiosity for continuation. But barely.

Outside of a few of its central characters, “The Bondsman” lacks a distinguishing personality. The rough visual effects and predictable drama only highlight the lack of worldbuilding and tonal whiplash. It’s a series that tries to be a horror-comedy, family drama, and violent crime thriller all at once but without the time or finesse to make any of it coherent or engaging. The concept behind the series is a strong one and it still has potential; the season ends with an intriguing hook. Here’s to hoping “The Bondsman” does anything of substance with it if renewed.

All eight episodes of “The Bondsman” will debut on Prime Video on April 3, 2025.

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