Steven Craig Zahler (born January 23, 1973) is an American film director, screenwriter, cinematographer, novelist, comic book artist, animator and musician. After beginning his career working briefly as a cinematographer, Zahler focused on screenwriting until he made his directorial debut with Bone Tomahawk (2015). He followed this up with Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017) and Dragged Across Concrete (2018), all of which he wrote and composed the music for. He has also authored several novels. Early life and education Zahler was born in Miami, Florida, to a Jewish family. Zahler studied film at New York University. Career 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 the stage name Czar, collaborates with 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 critics. The New York Times called it "[a] witty fusion of western, horror and comedy that gallops to its own beat", while the LA Times said "There's a humming genre intelligence at work in the grim, witty horror-western Bone Tomahawk." The Hollywood Reporter called it "[a] handsome Western with horror overtones", and Variety described it as "...a most violent delight", while Leonard Maltin said "[T]his modest feature leaves The Hateful Eight in the dust.