A genuine highlight of this year's Creature Feature Weekend, the horror-Western A Town Called Purgatory. I got to spend a few minutes talking with the guys behind the movie and found them to be a couple of fun, enthusiastic, creative folks. Their love for this project was front and center.
A Town Called Purgatory captures all of the archetypal roles of the Western, with performances that elevate the characters, creating individuals who enough complexity to be surprising, and enough heart to make us care. When I say there are no clear-cut heroes and villains, I mean that in the way I would say that everyone has some manner of flaw to their character, and it's those flaws that give us the opportunity to be great.
Story wise, A Town Called Purgatory merges the tropes of a creature feature with those of a Western so well that it doesn't feel like a monster movie or a Western. It feels like a movie about a group of people who end up in way over their heads with something people should never have encountered. Think John Carpenter's The Thing, only in the Old West. There is enough foreshadowing to feel inevitable, and enough twists that the inevitable resolves in unexpected ways.
They are still working on distribution for this movie, so I can't share a link where you can find it. But I will be looking for it regularly and following their progress on social media until A Town Called Purgatory finds a home. This one comes strongly recommended.