The Pale Door - An Honest Review 3/10

I have always felt that the Horror Western is an underrated subgenre, so when a movie comes around that hits that genre, and has the potential, then I will give it a go. Which brings me on to The Pale Door, a film which pits a bunch of women against some scurrilous train robbers in a wild west ghost town.

The film follows brothers Jake (Devin Druid) and Duncan (Zachary Knighton), who grew up on opposite sides of the law. Duncan runs the Dalton Gang, a group of outlaws. But that’s not the life Duncan ever wanted for his brother, who sweeps up at a saloon and saves his nickels to buy back the old farm they grew up at but sadly had to leave after the shocking night that made them orphans. That is, until the gang is one man down with a big payday coming on the next train and Jake offers to step in. The gang robs the train, but this score is not what they expected and next thing they know… witches. So the gang finds themselves in a western town full of some of the classic Disney witches (ugly and warts galore) and young Jake may be their only hope for survival. The film makes the leap from Salem witch trials to a Western pretty well with the basic mythology, the blood ritual and sex all added in for good measure.

I am all for a ghost town full of witches. It’s like a Scooby Doo episode gone wonderfully off track. Production values do not evoke a period and the props are hardly authentic, but the atmosphere is fun and the cast has a good time. Overall, the film fails to deliver something truly unique and drags in the middle.

A review by Andrew