There are memories that I have of being a child where I
would play games like cops and robbers where we would chase each other around
pretending to shoot each other to stop crimes, or run away and try to escape
with whatever imaginary stolen goods we could.
Another game, very similar to that, was cowboys and Indians, where we
would wage a Wild West war on one another in that playful way that only
children can. Maybe the nostalgia of
these games are why westerns have been such an influential part of television
and cinema. People want to relive the
cowboy magic of their childhoods and they do so by making movies and TV shows
about cowboys.
Yet sometime in the 1960s or 1970s (I wasn’t alive, so I
don’t know for sure), westerns fell out of favour. They were no longer the popular genre that
they had been up to that point. People
still wanted to make them, but not as many people wanted to watch them. Since that time, they have adapted to what
people wanted to see. The Wild Bunch was a wild, violent action
western. Quentin Tarantino made one of
his westerns into a heavy revenge action movie, and the other into a paranoid
thriller. Unforgiven was a 1990s throwback to the golden age of westerns that
gave a modern touch to the proceedings.
The most interesting way that westerns have adapted to the
different sensibilities of audiences, however, is through the blending of
genres. Action and westerns are fairly
easy to put together. The physical
nature of the horses, the gunfights, the heroes and villains. It’s all there. Comedy is much the same. Make the cowboys talk humorously. That’s not difficult. But what about other genres coming into the
picture? Westerns have recently
integrated horror, science fiction, and supernatural elements into their stories
in order to make things more interesting for the audiences of now. This blending hasn’t always been completely
successful. The thought is what matters,
though. The people behind the properties
tried to make them more interesting by trying new things while paying respect
to the traditional ways. It has made for
some fascinating products.
There are three movies that I want to discuss during this
post that each tried something different with the western genre. Bone
Tomahawk, Jonah Hex, and Cowboys & Aliens each took the
western genre, added something more, and made a movie out of it. I’m going to dive into what each of the three
did with their western elements, what they did with their other elements, and
how well the blending worked. In the
end, it doesn’t matter what the quality turned out to be. What matters is that the three movies tried
to do something new. They tried to bring
something fresh to the western genre, and it’s that effort that matters.
Bone Tomahawk
For fans of Kurt Russell, 2015 was a huge year. He made his debut in the Fast and Furious franchise.
But more importantly to this post, he was in two westerns. There was the Quentin Tarantino paranoia
western The Hateful Eight, where a
group of people were in a room trying to figure out who was bad and who was
good. The other movie was Bone Tomahawk, a western that added
elements of horror with cannibalistic bad guys.
The great thing about Bone
Tomahawk was that it blended the classic western style with the horror
story structure. It opened on a horror
scene, bringing in a couple characters who had something bad happen to
them. That bad thing led the main
characters to journey into the dark side of their Wild West. The setting was western. The characters set out on a journey in a
posse like a western. They were hunting
down kidnappers who stole someone from town, like bandits in a western. They slept under the stars and talked and
learned to become a team as they went towards their destination. There were small spurts of action until the
final act when the whole cannibal thing broke loose and the horror took over.
As I said, though, Bone
Tomahawk had a horror structure that blended well with the western
storytelling. Tension building moments
occurred throughout their journey, including meeting strangers and a raid on
one of the makeshift campsites they were sleeping at. It was similar to a slasher movie having a
few early kills of fairly unimportant characters before all hell breaks loose
with the leads. The horror was tailored
to fit the western setting. The genres
blended together in a delightful way that could satisfy both fans of horror and
fans of westerns. Neither of the genres
lost their characteristics because of the other. They joined together to create something
greater. It wasn’t a horror set in the
west. It wasn’t a western that simply
had horror added. It was a horror
western.
Jonah Hex
Another horror western mix, this time with more outlandish
action and a supernatural twist. Jonah
Hex was a character who had been left for dead by an ex-Confederate general,
only to be resurrected by the natives.
His resurrection gave him the power to speak to the dead. He went on an all-out revenge warpath to hunt
down the man who killed his family and left him for dead. It was basically The Punisher, but in a world where the Civil War had recently
ended.
The influences of other genres in Jonah Hex aren’t huge. It’s
mostly just a modern action western, but done in a blockbuster style of
action. Yet there were some supernatural
elements sprinkled throughout. It never
relied too heavily on these ideas. The
story could have played out almost the same had those elements not been a part
of it. Nurse the character back to
health instead of killing and resurrecting him.
Have the corpses he talked to be prisoners or witnesses instead of dead
bodies. It was an unnecessary addition.
Jonah Hex was
basically a revenge movie. The main character
wanted revenge on the ex-Confederate general for killing his family. That’s a basic western story that was
modernized through the writing of Neveldine/Taylor to become a modern insane
action film. There was no need to add in
the supernatural elements. It didn’t
take away from the movie in any way. It
made it feel more unique. But at the
same time, it felt as though there may have been a little too much going
on. There was another layer being placed
upon the story for no reason.
Cowboys & Aliens
The third and final film I want to discuss is this blending
of western and science fiction. The two
elements were put right in the title so that people would easily know what they
were getting into. It was a movie set in
the Wild West that had aliens doing their alien thing. Not Xenomorphs, mind you. Still had vagina mouth things, but they
weren’t Xenomorphs.
Cowboys & Aliens
was based on one simple question. What
would happen if aliens attacked during the Wild West time? It was an alien invasion movie that would
typically play out in a modern setting.
Think of Independence Day or V or War
of the Worlds. Each of those stories
were set in a modern America where the people had modern technology to fight
back against the aliens. Cowboys & Aliens took away that
modern technology, leaving the protagonists with guns and dynamite. And one future weapon that a character had
somehow gotten a hold of.
What makes it work (for me at least, most people don’t like
it) is that the movie was a simple replacement of a standard formula. It wasn’t forcing the two genres together. The science fiction was a replacement for
something that might seem racially insensitive in the modern day. That game that was mentioned at the
beginning, cowboys and Indians, typically made the cowboys out to be the good
guys while the natives were seen as bad.
The native side of the game was replaced with aliens, thus putting the
cowboys against invaders from another planet.
Race was removed from the equation.
In fact, the cowboys teamed up with the native people and the bandits to
fight against the aliens.
Cowboys & Aliens
took the past and the future and put them together in an entertaining tale of
Wild West action. Jonah Hex took a standard western revenge movie and brought
supernatural elements into it so that it would be more than a simple revenge
tale. Bone Tomahawk transposed a western story onto a horror
structure. Each had their own pros and
cons, coming together to be a trio of interesting genre blending westerns.
With the slow pacing of most westerns, by modern standards,
the genre needed to grow and adapt to a new audience with different sensibilities. Whether it was to add more action that would
speed things up, or to bring in other genres to try something new, westerns
have survived. They have changed to try
and keep up with the blockbuster movie world.
It brought about interesting movies that, though not always great, are
always memorable.
These notes might not be too memorable, but they’re here:
- Jonah Hex was suggested by @ER_NotR, who has also suggested Birdemic, Steel, Catwoman, and I, Frankenstein.
- The director of Jonah Hex was Jimmy Hayward, who also directed Free Birds. He had roles in both films.
- Rance Howard made an appearance in Jonah Hex, after making Sunday “Bad” Movies appearances in Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 and Valentine’s Day.
- Three actors from Fant4stic were also in Jonah Hex. They were Cynthia LeBlanc, Elton LeBlanc, and Ethan Myles.
- Shadoe Knight was one of the many actors in Jonah Hex who appeared in another movie. He was in Freelancers.
- Jonah Hex was Matthew Temple’s second Sunday “Bad” Movie after 8213: Gacy Street.
- Michael Wozniak returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies with Jonah Hex after previously appearing in Road House 2: Last Call.
- Finally, Richard Allan Jones has now appeared in two Sunday “Bad” Movies with Sandy Wexler and Jonah Hex.
- Have you seen Jonah Hex? Have you seen Bone Tomahawk or Cowboys & Aliens? What do you think of them or how they blend genres? Let me know in the comments.
- The comments are also a good place to let me know about movies I should watch for future Sunday “Bad” Movies installments. I’m always looking for suggestions here or on my Twitter page, so get a hold of me.
- Do you like seeing clips of bad movies? Why don’t you check me out on snapchat? Jurassicgriffin
- Now for the big 250. That’s coming up in a week’s time. It’s going to involve three movies. I’ll be diving back into the Baby Geniuses series by watching the third, fourth, and fifth movies. They happen to be a compilation of a television series that was inexplicably made. There might even be a bonus post coming next week, so get ready for that. I’ll see you in seven days with that stuff.
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