Hopefully I don’t lose too many cool points in saying that I am generally not too big of a fan of westerns. By nature, they are slowly paced, desolate, and depressing, which is why so many people love them. Other than The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and The Proposition, I don’t think there have been too many recent examples of traditional westerns, as most “westerns” these days tend to be considered contemporary westerns. I might have just made up that term, but I would use it to describe something like Tombstone or the remake of 3:10 to Yuma. These being films that are primarily action films that were set in the old west. Seeing how The Burrowers has been described as a horror western seemed quite ambitious, and for the most part, they pulled it off well.

“My name is Ethan, I’m from Ontario and was sitting in the midsection of the plane.” Yes, that’s ANOTHER Lost joke.

The story starts with a family in the old west being attacked by something out of the dark, but it is implied to be Native Americans, or as I like to call them, Injuns. Okay, I don’t actually like to call them that, but they are referred to as that in this film, so please forgive my politically incorrect vernacular for sake of this synopsis. Anyways, a group of men set out to discover what happened to this family, come hell or high water. They come upon an Indian in hopes of pulling information about this family from him, and he tells them the story of “burrowers”, which are supposedly creatures of the night. Not like ladies of the night, but creatures, who may or may not be females, but probably not. They can paralyze people with their spit and then bury them underground so they soften up, then they come back and eat them. Various characters become paralyzed, more Native Americans are encountered, and there is a big climactic confrontation.

“How did they know…my only weakness…was a beartrap…”

As previously mentioned, I am not a huge fan of westerns. I think were I a huge fan of westerns, I would have enjoyed this film a lot more. It was shot really well, and had a slower pace, but I got distracted from the story too easily. This also might be due to the fact that Rampaige kept saying “THIS IS ABOUT THE BOOGINS!”, which are apparently some Kentucky legend which she may or may not have been making up. Just the fact that this was a horror story that took place in the old west was pretty cool, because horror movies are generally taking place in modern times, so thinking about the fact that horrible things were happening to people before movies ever existed was interesting. If you like westerns, definitely check this out, but what the hell do I know? Maybe it was a shitty western and I am giving it more credit than it deserves. If anyone sees this movie, let me know what you think.

Wolfman Moon Scale