Hola all. Massawyrm here.

Some movies are just a hard sell, some ideas so fresh that we try to liken them to other films in order to understand them and then simply don’t want to give it a chance based upon our own comparison. Thus was the case of many of us this week with the stunning surprise of The Burrowers. It’s a horror western. About a group of riders being stalked by monsters that dwell underground. Until now, Horror Westerns simply haven’t really worked. And the premise sounds an awful lot like Tremors with horses instead of pickup trucks. But that’s not what this is. On the contrary, this is the best American horror film in quite some time and has easily become my second favorite film of the festival.

I first had the pleasure to write about writer/director JT Petty 7 years ago when he sent me a copy of his debut feature

>Soft For Digging

for my long defunct Indie Indie column. One of the first films I had the pleasure to write up, that film blew my doors off with its fresh, visual storytelling style. Running at just 74 minutes, Petty told the entire story with only three lines of spoken dialog – without ever boring the audience. A fascinating, gritty film about a man wrestling with his own sanity, Petty proved he had the mettle to tell slow, methodical, carefully woven stories about characters, not gimmicks. Which leads us to his new film, a much more mainstream film than Soft For Digging.

First and foremost this film is a western. It’s the story of four guys who come together to search for a family they believe to have been kidnapped by Native Americans. But as we learn from the very first scene, or, you know, the theatrical poster, that is far from the case. And while these men bear down on what they believe to be the location of the missing Stewart family, in turn something is bearing down on them. And that something is NOTHING like tremors.

The monsters here are quite original, with several dark, macabre twists to them that make their feeding habits far grislier than what we are normally accustomed to in modern horror. This is a real, honest to god monster movie – not a film about racking up a body count, but rather one exploring the mythology of a new and unique breed of villain. All the while, the film unfolds as a classic western tale. The dialog is razor sharp, with memorable lines spilling out at regular intervals, carefully crafting a bad ass bunch of hombres. Clancy Brown spearheads the coolness factor here as the elder ass kicker and seasoned veteran teaching our young hero the ways of the untamed wild. And every time he opens his mouth it is pure gold.

Meanwhile, the film is a harsh commentary on the rape of the old west and just how quickly things changed once we set our minds to civilizing it. JT Petty crafts a series of interesting characters and milks a wonderful amount of drama out of them while serving up some genuinely creepy scenes and exquisite, gut-wrenching moments. This film is just so damned smart, despite its initial appearance in blurb form. It is a fantastic film about unraveling a new mythology rather than simply borrowing from one. I cannot recommend this film enough. It has become my second favorite film of the festival (behind Let the Right One In) and is in my opinion probably the best American made horror film produced in the last several years. Original, well crafted and fun despite its heavy tone, The Burrowers is top shelf horror entertainment made by one of the finest, emerging horror talents in the business. Lion’s Gate has this and should be putting it out shortly, so keep your eyes open for it.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

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