Starring: Nick Searcy, Gina Carano, Donald Cerrone
Director: Michael Polish
Released: 2022
Mood: If you’re exhausted from work and fed up with your customers and want to watch a bunch of dark violent action with zero energy wasted on original storytelling.
Terror on the Prairie is an okay movie. That’s it. Review over.
Just kidding. But this isn’t a movie that I’ll find myself thinking about weeks from now, nor is it a movie I’ll watch again.
It’s not BAD. In fact, there’s quite a bit about Terror on the Prairie that’s done really well, especially considering that it’s one of a mere handful of films and documentaries produced by DailyWire for its streaming platform, and apparently it made under $15k from its limited global theatrical release.
It’s just not GREAT.
The only reason I even watched it yesterday was because I was trying to decide if I should stop giving Jeff Bezos money every year for a Prime membership that I never use, since our local mail service now drops Amazon packages halfway down the road, on the ground, where the neighbour’s dogs tear them up. That’s a whole other story.
But other than yet another strong performance by Nick Searcy, this movie did nothing to make up for the fact that I pay for free shipping and never get to use it. Here’s why.
Terror on the Prairie opens with a man being beaten by a gang of what are clearly outlaws. ‘The Captain’ (Nick Searcy) gleefully quotes scripture from atop his horse, and there’s an extremely graphic scalping.
While the scene is instantly impactful and Searcy is captivating, it’s less impressive after seeing Jeff Daniels do the same kind of character in Godless.
We cut to a family at a remote homestead in Montana. Hattie McAllister (Gina Carano) is seen cooking, washing clothes, fetching water, and feeding animals, all while packing around a fussy baby. She tells husband Jeb (Donald Cerrone) that frontier life is not for her and she wants to go back to Missouri.
Jeb goes into town to get supplies – and to secretly look for work – leaving Hattie with the baby and their son, Will (Rhys Becker) for several days. Almost immediately the outlaw gang arrives at the homestead, asking to water their horses. The Captain asks casual questions, learning that Jeb isn’t home.
This storyline, too, has been done countless times in countless Westerns.
Hattie initially invites them inside to eat, but when she notices the scalps hanging from The Captain’s saddle, she pulls a shotgun and forces them to drop their guns and leave.
Surprising nobody, they take over the barn. The outlaws set up a siege, complete with violent acts of psychological warfare, on Hattie and her kids. The rest of the movie is fairly predictable, but The Captain does reveal a valid purpose for attacking this little family.
Nick Searcy carries Terror on the Prairie, and I’m not just saying that because he rocks such great facial hair as The Captain – although his follicles in The Old Way also earned my praise. I just started watching Justified, and I find myself distracted in his scenes by the sad baldness of his upper lip and chin.
Searcy’s character is the only one who really has levels. He goes from congenial to cruel, from ruthless to a glimpse of heartbreak, from warmth to vengeful anger. And throughout it all, he radiates a wholly Western vibe.
Ex-MMA fighter Gina Carano is… interesting… as Hattie. The character is a strong woman; even though she wants to leave the frontier, she’s not a delicate flower. She’s just tired of being poor and overworked. She later demonstrates both her physical and mental strength while holding off the outlaws.
Hattie doesn’t speak much for the first part of the movie, which it turns out is a good thing. When Carano does start talking, her delivery fades in and out of believability. But she’s not as bad as UFC Hall-of-Famer Donald Cerrone as Jeb, who is thankfully gone for most of the movie.
The outlaws and young Will are all stronger performances than the two parents, and the outlaw gang has more chemistry than the family. The end result is a generic story of a woman alone defending her home. Caitlyn Gerard dials the same concept to a terrifying 11 in The Wind, Natalie Portman excels at fighting off enemies in Jane Got a Gun, and even Heather Graham did it better in Place of Bones.
Terror on the Prairie may lack an original story and outstanding lead actors, but at least they threw a massive budget at it – rumoured to be around $2M – so it has great cinematography.
I already mentioned the scalping that happens before the opening credits, and there are several other similarly brutal scenes throughout the movie. All of the action after the outlaws surround the homestead is quite well-shot, but especially every time someone gets wounded or killed. This movie does NOT shy away from showing everything.
All in all, you could do worse than Terror on the Prairie. Unfortunately with so many streaming services and new shows popping up all the time, you could do a whole lot better.
