The 10 Wildest Horror Westerns

Brad Gullickson and Film School Rejects present The 10 Wildest Horror Westerns. I have to admit, at first I thought, “Have there been 10 worthy horror westerns?” – then I saw Gullickson’s list and agreed there have.  So using just Gullickson’s list, I selected three and made sure that they met the western criteria and were scary.  So here are three of my favorites …

Westworld (1973)
Set in the future (at the time of its release), Westworld slips into the horror western genre by a technicality.  See the monster is a robot cowboy that has gone on a killing spree.  Boy, rereading that sentence, Westworld sounds stupid.  But it’s not.  It’s actually a very entertaining film — especially to the 15 year old me who loved seeing it on the big screen.  And have no worries, it holds up well.

Near Dark (1987)
A modern western with a vampire twist.  I love Near Dark.  It was great to see Aliens cast mates reunited.  How cool is it to imagine a family of vampires some who turned during the Civil War, traveling the modern day west and doing what vampires do best.  Wrap in a love story, a father’s quest to save his son and a vampire turned as a child who will forever have the child’s body but an adult’s desires and you have one heck of a horror-western!

Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Some may argue that Bone Tomahawk isn’t a horror film.  Those that do haven’t seen the movie.  What’s scarier than cannibalistic Troglodytes?  Nothing.  And if you think we’re splitting hairs to get Bone Tomahawk classified as a horror film, then watch it and see what Troglodytes split.

A couple more comments…

High Plains Drifter (1973) – Is one of my least favorite Eastwood movies.  And while it does meet the criteria to be a western/horror film, it only does so by the thinnest of margins being a western with an avenging ghost… that’s not scary.

Ravenous (1999) – Is a strange hybrid.  A western set in the 1840’s with a few cannibals.  Well, one main one anyway.  It’s a good movie… but definitely different.

The Valley of the Gwangi (1969) – 10 year old me saw this at a drive-in and loved it!  How could I not, I had to be the demographic it was aiming for — Cowboys and Dinosaurs!!  Sad to say I saw it years later and it had lost some of it’s coolness.  Ok, a lot of it’s coolness.