Crew
Director – Michael Steves, Screenplay – Gabi Duncombe, Bubba Fish & Michael Steves, Story/Producer – Yousef Abu-Taleb Photography – Gabi Duncombe, Music – Misha Segal, Visual Effects Supervisors – Jason Miller & Sean Pfeiffer, Makeup Effects – Tanner White, Production Design – Bobby Guard & David Hartwell. Production Company – Youabu Productions/Ginger Digital.
Cast
Tony Todd (Jericho Whitfield), Michael Eklund (Roland Bursley), Jennifer Laporte (Annie Hargraves), Jeryl Prescott (Desdemona Lark), Jill Hoiles (Grace McDowell), Youself Abu-Taleb (The Priest), Lance Henriksen (The Devil), Nick Bennett (Wesley/The Shapeshifter), Richard Riehle (The Conductor), Sewell Whitney (Nathaniel Hickson), Omono Okojie (Clara Whitfield), Diahanna Baxter (Jericho’s Wife/The Shapeshifter), Anna Borchert (The Priest’s Temptress)
Plot
The late 19th Century. Jericho Whitfield boards a train in search of Annie Hargreaves. He has sworn to kill the firstborn child of all slave owners, after his owner killed his child when Jericho led an uprising. However, Annie’s father has hired the mercenary Roland Burley to protect her. Jericho tries to buy Roland off but is taken prisoner. As the train sets out, it becomes apparent that everybody in the carriage has guilty secrets and blood on their hands. It also becomes apparent that the train is taking them to Hell.
West of Hell was the second film for Michael Steves who previously made the horror comedy Clinger (2014). The film is produced and the story conceived by Yousef Abu-Taleb, previously best known as an actor on the lonelygirl15 (2006-8) hoax YouTube drama. Yousef also plays the role of the priest here.
The Western-horror hybrid has been with us ever since the vampire Western Curse of the Undead (1959). There have been assorted films where a Western town sits halfway between the living world and the afterlife as in Phantom Town (1999) and Purgatory (1999). (For a more detailed listing see my essay Weird Westerns). It must also be said that West of Hell is an economy Western that only seems to take place within two rooms of a train carriage, plus a couple of shots of conductor Richard Riehle walking the exterior.
West of Hell immediately catches your attention. It starts right at the moment it should with Tony Todd entering the carriage to kill Jennifer Laporte but coming up against Michael Eklund as a gunslinger hired to protect her. Things promptly spin through a series of sharp and electric turns – where Todd is trying to bribe Eklund to sell Laporte out with the offer of the reward on his wanted poster, only to be captured. He is placed under guard by African-American maid Jeryl Prescott whereupon Todd is trying to inspire her to stand up and join his cause to take holy vengeance against former slave owners but she proves unwilling.
As comes out through the course of the journey, everyone aboard the train is revealed to be holding secrets, to be a murderer or have blood on their hands. You reach the revelation that they are damned souls before the script clues us in. I kept being reminded of Dr Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) with the five passengers in the carriage being told their fates before the end where they discover they are dead.
The latter third of West of Hell becomes less interesting – the fine character tensions give way to seeing the characters killed off. There are some interesting scenes at the end when Lance Henriksen turns up as The Devil. We get a few gory despatches and meltdowns. The dvd does falsely advertise that this is an ‘uncut’ version of the film when the original release runtime and the dvd’s runtime are both the same.
Trailer here