‘The Bondsman’ (2025) Prime Video Series Review - A Not-Bad Horror Comedy

Created by Grainger David, The Bondsman knows how to sneak up on you like a sly thief. At first, it looks like a binge-able, disposable, easy watch - something similar to The Sticky. The half-hour episodes are undemanding, and the humor is casual, light, and easygoing. However, the more you learn about the titular character - his name is Hub Halloran, and he's played by Kevin Bacon - the more interesting the show seems. This bounty hunter of the Devil has a few skeletons in his closet—okay, one skeleton in the backyard of his house, to be precise. Who is the victim? That's for you to find. How does Hub elevate the series? He's...interesting. He defies easy categorization as either a good or bad person, residing somewhere in between—much like most people in real life. Hub loves his mother, his ex-wife, and his kid, and this love gives him shades of humanity. On the flip side, he apparently harbored jealousy over his ex-wife's superior singing talent and is hiding a terrible secret from those around him. In one of the scenes, he uses someone close to him as bait to evade the police. Hub can be an asshole, but there might be an angel lurking somewhere inside his body. Bacon terrifically swings between the two moral sides; he makes it almost impossible for you to hate or admire Hub completely.

The hell in The Bondsman is like a corporate space that runs on a Pyramid scheme. They have a guidebook called Pot O Gold, which Hub doesn't bother to read. Hub has a "parole officer" named Midge (Jolene Purdy), who, for personal reasons, works for the Devil. I mean, who would willingly go to work at this "office." The Bondsman gets its charge from a few amusing touches like smoke coming out of a slit throat and a "jumping" water pipe. You cannot call the writing lazy. Observe how the demons are unleashed. A girl who sheds crocodile tears on a live stream is possessed by the water demon. A police officer who harasses a shopkeeper for money is found in a supermarket when he becomes an evil spirit. In one of the episodes, the big tires of a monster truck represent the inflated male ego, so the demon starts the possession routine by puncturing the wheels. The most fun thing about The Bondsman, though, has to be Beth Grant's Kitty. She places the "Momma Bear" sticker on her chest proudly as if it were a badge of honor and naively uses the cross to tackle a demon priest. If The Bondsman is a horror-comedy, then the comedy is mainly supplied by Kitty. Grant is so confident, so charming, so effortlessly funny that all she needs to do is simply pop up on the screen to make you smile.

Still, one eventually starts wondering why The Bondsman feels so okayish, so slight. One reason could be that the show looks exciting when you think about it, though when you watch it, you sense a disconnect between the images and the writing. The former is not as playful or ambitious as the latter - the visuals are infected with mediocrity. There is no effort made to distinguish one demon from the other. All we get is fire coming out of the victim's eyes. The Dutch angles indicate that this world is off-balance, but this style quickly becomes repetitive, unimaginative, and unstimulating. Hub's comeuppance could have landed better with clear emotional heft. The Bondsman tries to give some weight to Hub's iniquitous action, but it fails because this is the same world where the "demonic victims" are treated as disposable beings. The show wants to be a cheerful comedy slasher like Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies, and it also wants to be a drama about past sins. The two tones don't jell effectively. The comedy part dominates the whole series because The Bondsman intends to be an easy watch - it wants to be a sweet-sour candy. Hence, the so-called drama is rendered bland and reduced to a serviceable plot device. The Bondsman is a not-bad series. You have a good time watching it. However, if a friend ends up asking you, "How is the show?" You might say to him, "Eh, it's fine." The series doesn't leave you thrilled or ecstatic. That's the problem with it.

Final Score- [5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times
Note: All 8 episodes are screened for this review.
Premiere Date: April 3, 2025, on Prime Video