Starring: Karl Geary, Clancy Brown, William Mapother, Sean Patrick Thomas, Doug Hutchison, Galen Hutchison, Alexandra Edmo

Director: J.T. Petty
Released: 2008

Mood: If you can’t decide between putting on a Western or a horror movie and you can’t believe one film could possibly deliver on both genres.

If you’re looking for a scary AF Western horror, The Burrowers is the way to go.

I was starting to think that my quest to find the best horror Westerns was going to end with only two or three good movies, and an increasingly huge pile of mediocrity or outright garbage (hello, Gallowwalkers). But holy crap, does this movie have it everything you want and need:

• Authentic costumes
• Crazy good suspense
• Realistic gore
• An unknowable supernatural enemy
• Deeply engaging human storytelling

The Burrowers effectively blends all of the best parts of horror and Western into something that’s at once terrifying and wholly enjoyable. It’s chilling. It’s intense. And it fits perfectly into the Old West era.

The Burrowers opens in 1879, Dakota Territory. A sweet young Irishman (Karl Geary as Fergus Coffey) narrates his fumbling proposal to a young woman over gorgeous scenic shots. Then one night the woman’s family is brutally attacked by unseen killers. You hear a LOT of screams and really, really bad sounds.

Rugged frontiersman John Clay (Clancy Brown) arrives at the homestead with Coffey, and they discover the bodies – and that Coffey’s paramour is missing. A strange, small hole is found in the dirt nearby. What does it mean?

They form a search party with the obnoxious military man Henry Victor (Doug Hutchison), who immediately declares it’s Natives who killed the family. Along for the mission are former soldier William Parcher (William Mapother), his lover’s teenage son Dobie Spacks (Galen Hutchison), and freedman Walnut Callaghan (Sean Patrick Thomas), plus a bunch of other soldiers.

It quickly becomes obvious that Victor is on his own mission to wipe out the Natives. A captured Lakota Sioux man warns the whole group that they’re facing ‘burrowers’, which everyone takes to be an antagonistic Indigenous tribe.

Clay, Coffey, Parcher, and Spacks break off on their own to follow the trail of the strange holes. Callaghan joins them shortly afterwards. But people keep disappearing, and we start to see more and more hints of the burrowers as they close in on the group each time night falls.

They’re clearly not human. And it seems like they can’t be stopped.

I don’t even know what I like best about The Burrowers. There’s just too much to praise.

The bloodbath and the horror is introduced right out of the gate, and it’s incredibly graphic. Throughout the film you’ll see bodies in various states of decay, foot torture, gunshot wounds, and a guy getting eaten alive. Yet it never feels gratuitous.

This is because the gore is only utilized when it’s relevant to the story. The attacks, and thus the carnage, are initially spread out by long stretches of dialogue and other action, and then slowly increase to a frenzy. This tactic builds fantastic tension – you’re not constantly overstimulated, but you’re also not left waiting for “the big bad” for most of the film.

The suspense is heightened by the burrowers remaining just out of sight for about half of the movie, and only being fully seen in the terrifying final attack. For the most part you only see the ground rippling and shadows moving quickly in the tall grass, just beyond the light of the fire. There are creepy sounds reminiscent of the Predator, so your brain knows it’s something supernatural but you can’t SEE it.

And then when you do finally see them, you kinda wish you hadn’t because you know they’re going to pop up in your nightmares later. They are absolutely brilliantly crafted horror monsters, like if Gollum and a naked mole rat had a baby. So gross, yet so perfect.

Even tiny elements, like the persistent scratching of the victims’ fingers or toes, will chill you to the bone.

The storytelling in The Burrowers is also exceptionally strong – it’s a small cast, so you really get to know each of the characters.

In fact, most of the movie is about the characters while the burrowers themselves are only in a handful of scenes. I also love that it DOESN’T have a star-studded cast, so everyone feels equally weighted and adept in their roles. This is a talented group of actors who work well together, but each shine in their own ways.

Doug Hutchison is a little over the top as Victor, but I feel like he was giving the performance a self-righteous, Napoleon complex-type energy. Everyone else looks and feels 100% like people you’d meet in this time and place.

AND THE ENDING. Do not expect to have any good feels of any kind when it’s over. In fact, be prepared to be deeply unsettled. I’ve been looking extra hard at the damn gopher holes ever since.

The Burrowers was shot in under 30 days, and it has a subtle yet impactful underlying theme about what happens when white people screw up ecosystems with their relentless pursuit of domination and profit. It’s like a zombie movie in that sense – the threat would never have become a threat if it wasn’t for the actions of humans.

I have no notes, nothing I’d change. This film is definitely now on my October scary movie watch list.