Director: Robert Conway
Year: 2021
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Working through the countryside, a sheriff and his deputy tracking a dangerous convict and his wife stop at a deserted town a cholera outbreak and rest up to replenish their supplies, only to come across a strange curse from an Indian being turning others into similar such possessed beings and must find a way to stop it.
Review:
Overall, this was a pretty solid and fun old-west creature feature. When this one gets the majority of its positives is due to the build-up of the creatures’ actions over the town. Focusing heavily on the Western atmosphere of the sheriff and the deputy escorting the woman and her dead husband back to town in order to collect the reward on them, that this does so with the usual exploits of the banter between the officers and their captive, the disbelief between the locals that something could go wrong and the struggles with the local Indian tribe which combines together into a rather engaging first half. While it keeps the horror elements on the outskirts of the events that transpire here with the mysterious ceremonies concocted by the Indian tribe and the strange outbreaks that occur around the area that befall the other settlers, this is all quite intriguing and starts the film quite nicely.
Once the idea of the creature and its curse is freed, the film jumps into a fun genre romp offering the kind of solid combination between these two genres. With the initial attack at the cabin where the family fending off the outlaws before being interrupted by the infected spirit crashing the house and battling with them. This causes the discovery of the curse spreading to others once several of the survivors are seen to come down with the same conditions, featuring some fine body-horror sequences of their skin breaking out and bleeding savagely before turning into the creatures. The finale features quite a lot to like with the various confrontations and encounters that manage some fun gore on top of some decent effects on the main creature and the main battle tactics that are deployed against it. These here are the efforts that hold this up against the negatives.
There isn’t much to dislike here but it does have some issues. The main factor against this one is that for all the good it does establishing its Old-West atmosphere, very little of that comes off with any interest for genre fans. The idea of the three traveling through the wilderness arguing over their personal politics and how they align with the right side of the law while only intermittently featuring anything of any genre consequence is a big factor here that has to be taken into account for fans wanting a more straightforward creature feature set in the time period. Since it’s around the halfway point that it switches over a little more cleanly in terms of these genres coming together, the pacing issues can be a hurdle to get over. As well, there’s also the film’s low-budget limitations that result in there not being a real genuine atmosphere here even though there’s a lot of storyline elements present, which all manage to hold this one down overall.
Overview: ***/5
A generally enjoyable hybrid mixture of Western and Horror that initially flows more into the Western setup before the Horror elements come into play later on, this is quite fun if you're interested in going along through the motions of the genres. Those fans are going to be the ones who are going to be the most interested in this one, but most others should heed caution with the film overall.
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