Boneyard, a new serial killer thriller starring Brian Van Holt, Mel Gibson, and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, arrives in theaters this Friday. Cherry the Geek TV spoke with many of the cast and creatives behind the film and we will be sharing our interviews all week.
The film is loosely based on the 2009 West Mesa Murders in Albuquerque, New Mexico. When the skeletal remains of eleven women and girls are discovered in the desert (in a spot labeled “The Boneyard”), an extensive investigation is launched. This chilling crime-thriller follows Police Chief Carter (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), Detective Ortega (Brian Van Holt), and Agent Petrovick (Mel Gibson) in a multi-agency effort to identify and apprehend the killer. As each of their agendas and methods clash, a tangled web of intrigue casts suspicion in all directions.
Nora Zehetner plays Detective Young in the film. She is partnered with Brian Van Holt’s Detective Ortega. “She is somebody who very much wants to solve the case and cares about these women,” Zehetner said. “She wants to bring the killer to justice and she wants to make sure everyone she is working with is on the same page, but I think she feels alone most of the time.”
Zehetner says she prepped for her role by speaking to a female detective. “I think being a woman in that world is different than being a man in that world. It was interesting to talk to her about her day-to-day and how she felt and how she was treated, and that helped how I approached the character.”
Zehetner thinks it’s still a “boys club” when it comes to police work but that it’s important to have female detectives, especially in cases where the victims are female–in the case of Boneyard–mostly sex workers. “It’s important when you have a very vulnerable subsect of the population that people don’t have much empathy for. When I was reading about the West Mesa Murders, there was a lot of speculation that there wasn’t as much energy put into solving the case because there wasn’t much of an appetite for it. It was easy for people to look away. Some of these women had been cut off from their families, some were teenage runaways, and that is so devastating to hear. I know that there was a female detective on this case that was very passionate about it and worked very hard. I think that we as women are generally vulnerable to violence. It’s important to have women involved in these things.”
You can watch the full interview with Nora Zehetner by clicking on the link below:
Boneyard is available on VOD platforms and opens in theaters on July 5th.
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