S. Craig Zahler

Steven Craig Zahler (born January 23, 1973) is an American film director, screenwriter, cinematographer, novelist and musician. 2Life and career Zahler was born in Miami, Florida, to a Jewish family. He has written novels in various genres, including western, crime and science fiction, and these works have received support from major award-winning names in both genre literature and film, most notably, Walter Hill, Kurt Russell, Larry Niven, Joe R. Lansdale and Jack Ketchum. His debut noir western novel, A Congregation of Jackals, was nominated for The Spur Award by the Western Writers of America and The Peacekeeper by the Western Fictioneers. Corpus Chrome, Inc., A Congregation of Jackals and Mean Business on North Ganson Street all received starred reviews for excellence in Booklist.As a drummer, lyricist and singer, Zahler (under his stage name Czar) collaborates with his longtime friend Jeff Herriott (as JH Halberd) to write and perform songs as the heavy metal band Realmbuilder, who have three albums on Swedish label I Hate Records. This is following Zahler's foray into black metal with the project Charnel Valley, for which he played drums, wrote lyrics and shared songwriting duties with Worm. The two Charnel Valley albums were released by Paragon Records.Zahler also wrote the script for a 2011 horror film Asylum Blackout (also released as The Incident at Sans Asylum and The Incident), which was directed by Alexandre Courtès.In 2015, Zahler made his directorial debut, writing and directing the horror western Bone Tomahawk, which stars Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Lili Simmons, David Arquette and Richard Jenkins. The film was released on October 23, 2015, in theaters and on video on demand. Bone Tomahawk was met with favorable reception, winning a few awards. The film is 'Certified Fresh' by Rotten Tomatoes, where it has received positive reviews from 90% of critic