Recent Western Movie I Just Saw for the First Time

"The Western depicts a struggle between good and evil in a setting where civilization and wilderness are in transition." (Melinda Corey and George Ochoa, The American Film Institute Desk Reference, 2002)

"Dad's appreciation of movies was less theoretical but also resonant. Two decades of watching war movies with a detail-oriented retired army reservist - 'Look at that, walking on a ridge in silhouette!' followed by Dad making a machine-gun noise to indicate he'd just killed all of our heroes - bred intolerance for flagrant inauthenticity." (Michael Adams, Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies: A Film Critic's Year-Long Quest To Find the Worst Movie Ever Made, 2010)

The Burrowers (three stars total) The way I interpret the first quote above is that in a western movie, good and/or evil can come from either the civilizations OR the wilderness that is in transition. The Burrowers (2008) is a horror-western where the horror comes both from "civilized" Union soldiers' treatment of Native Americans and from wilderness creatures that turn to man for a source of food after the near-extinction of the buffalo. If that sounds hokey to you, know that it comes from the tested tastes of the paying public. On the DVD special features, the director says that he always wanted to do an old-fashioned western, but he didn't think anyone else would be interested unless he added monsters (and evidently not just any monsters, but giant, carnivorous, humanoid prairie dog monsters). As for the second quote above, my mom once told me that she hates fiction that tries to rewrite history as politically correct. Fortunately, The Burrowers doesn't claim that the Irish were treated any better than African-Americans or women OR buffalo. It leaves history as both good, evil, and well, horrific. Speaking of horror, it's been over six months since last October's horror movie review marathon so I felt refreshed enough to start a two-week western-themed marathon. Back to The Burrowers, I was surprised to see that the lead character, an Irishman, was played by an actual Irishman and that Sean Patrick Thomas (from Save the Last Dance) was in a western. I don't agree with those who say the movie got off to a slow start and after they did finally show the creatures, I wished I could've gone back to the quick cuts and sheer suspense of the first half. Why is it that all monsters these days look like something on a video game and sound like the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park? For the record, people walking like spiders wasn't scary way back on The Exorcist and it's still not scary now.