The Old West! Maybe the best movie setting of all time. Men were men, women were women, and bullets cast the final votes. A real man smoked cigars or cigarettes, and a real women knew how to please the men. Throw in some Apache, who no one liked, some cannibals, and a monster called a wendigo and we have 2025's "Blood in Them Hills," directed by Kellen Garner and Christopher Sheffield.
There is a lot in this film, as there usually is when cannibals, Apache, and wendigos are mentioned in the same description (Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" for example), and we will not touch on most of it. Let us first talk about cowboy Joe (Garner) who heads a gang of psychos who rob a bank. A shootout occurs and him and his gang get away with gold bars. Doc (Chad Green), the town doctor is furious that the gang murdered his best friend during the robbery and sets out to find them. Joe can't quite put down a mutiny by his cousin and has to flee leaving Mack (Chris Cleveland) as head of the gang. Joe keeps the gold and is quickly taken prisoner by Doc, who wants to kill him. Leading Joe back to justice, Doc comes across a torn apart farm and finds midwife Willow (Aria Song) and the baby who survived whatever befell this farm. What did befall this farm? The wendigo!
Now the four trek back to the nearest town, Joe in handcuffs. Uh oh...wendigo monsters are not the immediate problem. Cannibals manning a trading post are. This won't end well and the four are on the run again from cannibals. The cannibals attack and are destroyed by Apache and a wendigo. The wendigo? An ugly thing with great big claws and a bovine head. The snows come and it does not look good for Doc, Joe, Willow, and the baby. The wendigo seems to want the baby and gets aggressive. Doc tries to keep the kid and Willow alive without food in the frigid woods as Joe plots escape with the gold he absconded with. Uh oh...the wendigo has a way of uniting mortals even though they don't have what it takes to fight it off. The baby cries, Doc desires justice, Joe is torn between the life of his new friends and greed, and Willow tries to be the mother of a baby she never wanted. The wendigo will decide.
Will Joe become a good guy and use his gunfighting skills to kill creatures and save babies? Will Doc be able to bring Joe back to face a court of law and still save Willow and the baby? Are the cannibals at the trading post a bit gratuitous for this plot or are cannibals an underused plot device? This is a long film and we did not even talk about the first 45 minutes of it. For what ultimately is a terrific horror film that poses some great questions, see "Blood in Them Hills."
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