OK lets be completely brutally honest here, I only watched this because of one thing and one thing only, the main star is Kurt Russell. There is literally no other reason that I watched this movie because I generally have little interest in horror flicks, unless they are part comedies or from the 50's black and white era, or starring an actor/s I genuinely enjoy watching (like Russell). Unfortunately I can report early on that my fears were cemented with this movie, other than Russell and the films title there is nothing of interest here at all, in fact its completely nonsensical crap of the highest order.
So the plot goes thusly. Set in the 1890's in the small western town of Bright Hope, USA, we are introduced to a small band of townsfolk, mainly from within the local saloon. Kurt Russell is the tough grisly Sheriff Hunt, then we have a dapper, smartly dressed womaniser named Brooder, a middle aged foreman sporting a broken leg named O'Dwyer, and local backup deputy old man Chicory. During the course of the night O'Dwyer's wife and deputy Nick are watching over a suspicious character that had rolled into town and was shot in the leg by Hunt whilst trying to avoid questioning. The next day all three are gone and a local boy has been murdered, the only bit of evidence left is an arrow. So after consulting the local indian and discovering the offenders are a tribe of crazy wild cannibalistic people, Hunt, O'Dwyer, Chicory and Brooder march off to rescue the kidnapped threesome.
Now the first thing I must stress here is the fact this tribe of nutters live far away from Bright Hope in a valley with caves, and yes, most of the runtime is spent watching our small band of heroes walk to this valley. I kid you not people, don't go expecting any blood and gore for quite some time because the heroes have to walk hundreds of miles to get to this valley. Now remember I said O'Dwyer has a broken leg, well that doesn't stop him coming along for the trip. OK its understandable that he's upset because his wife has been snatched by blood thirsty savages, but surely the fact he has a broken leg is enough to make him think twice about going, I mean...what can do?? To make matters even worse, halfway into the trip they get done over by some bandits who nick off with their horses! So then they end up walking the rest of the way! and O'Dwyer has a broken leg!! As if anyone would have allowed this guy to come along, and they could have easily stopped him, sheesh!
Eventually after much travelling, we start to get down to the real nitty gritty of the story, the savages. Now I'm still kinda unsure who these people are suppose to be, are they a primitive Native American tribe? a lost undiscovered tribe dating back to earlier man? a cult? or just insane Native Americans? We don't really get any background info on these people other than where they live and that they eat people. Visually they kinda have a South American Inca vibe about them if you ask me, but I guess they're probably native Americans. As the situation deepens we find these people are made out to be somewhat supernatural, mainly down to their ghostly body paint, gruesome body modifications and their howling abilities. Yes that's right, these people can howl like...umm, monsters? Turns out they have some kind of whistle thing implanted in their throats (body modification) which allows them to howl by arcing their bodies upwards like wolves, and it can be really loud. They do this to communicate to each other over distances, but we never hear them speak to each other either. This alone offers up so many questions such as, what are these whistle things? (they look like bone), and where do they get them? (presumably from dead animals?). How do they implant them into their throats and how does that howling work? Is it possible that doing this operation makes them unable to speak?
This also leads me to the small sequence where O'Dwyer has managed to kill one of the tribe and he's sees the neck whistle thing. He then proceeds to cut it out because, of course you'd do that, I know I would (pfft!!!), obviously he's gonna need it later on down the line. So yeah after cutting up this dead guys neck for some icky bone whistle thing, he then proceeds to actually use the thing! He actually sticks it in his own mouth and starts to use it as a whistle, because of course you would, I know I'd do that (pfft!!!!!). But again...what actually is this thing?!
Of course being cannibals you just know there's gonna be some sick sacrificial sequence where some poor sod gets chopped up, and guess what...there is! Yes for all you gore porn fans out there, there is indeed a lovely moment where deputy Nick is literally torn apart after being scalped and having his own scalp shoved down his throat, for some reason. You see I don't get this notion, OK you're a cannibal and you eat people, fine. Now you have some people captured and you're gonna eat them, fine. Why the flippin' fuck would you wanna kill them in some disgusting manner? Firstly why are you acting so cruel to the victim, surely killing and eating them is bad enough, at least put them out of their misery nicely, softly. Secondly, why would you wanna tear their body apart and see everything? wouldn't that put you off? do people do that to animals for food? No, you just kill them, chop off the bits you need and cook it up, no need to methodically rip the victim to pieces letting everything fall out everywhere making a mess. It just seems to me like they had to make the killing as gruesome as possible to attract an audience for the film, cannibalism clearly equals mega gruesome death sequences for fun, apparently.
The entire movie is absolutely ridiculous from one scene to the next. The cannibals live in some cave high up in a cliff face, the only way into this cave is by having ropes thrown down for you to climb up, got that? So how on earth did O'Dwyer, with his broken leg, manage to get his ass into the cave just in time to save the day towards the end of the film? Oh...spoiler alert, but if you've seen the film you know its bloody obvious he'll end up doing this. Its just like the cannibals waiting to kill Nick right at the moment that Hunt and co have been captured, presumably for dramatic effect and to show their fate? They had Nick and O'Dwyer's wife for bloody ages and they only kill Nick at that moment? I guess they were full from eating the other guy (the suspicious guy).
In the end I found this movie to be rather dull for the first part, rather unnecessarily gory at times, and finally just plain stupid. Russell looks the part and is enjoyable to watch as usual even though his acting has always been rather wooden if you ask me. It looks like he's either on the way to making 'The Hateful Eight' or just finished, and he's using his facial hair one last time before having a shave. Everyone else on board is fine but nothing special, its cool that we get to know each character quite well as they travel towards an uncertain future, but essentially the enemy they face is so daft and not particularly scary anyway. In the end they are fighting against a native tribe of cannibals in war paint (and not many either), nothing really ingenious to say the least, nothing particularly new. Just take the 'Aliens' setup and replace a futuristic space setting with the wild west, and then replace aliens with cannibals, job done. If you're into low budget, indie horror flicks then this is for you. Myself, I wasn't really taken by this, I kinda found myself wishing they were up against wild west werewolves or something.
5/10
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