Weird Western Films (Genre) - Revision history

Graham: /* Keeper Notes */ Removed a '0' from the line.

2020-11-19T02:15:48Z

‎Keeper Notes: Removed a '0' from the line.

Ywhateley: Formatting.

2018-12-26T19:34:58Z

Formatting.

Ywhateley: Formatting.

2018-12-26T19:17:08Z

Formatting.

Ywhateley: Additional Details added

2018-12-26T19:14:30Z

Additional Details added

Ywhateley: Additional Details added

2018-12-26T19:11:33Z

Additional Details added

Ywhateley: Additional Details added

2018-12-26T19:10:29Z

Additional Details added

Ywhateley: Typo corrected.

2018-12-26T18:40:35Z

Typo corrected.

Ywhateley: Categorization.

2018-12-09T17:48:39Z

Categorization.

Ywhateley: Details, typo corrections, and clarifications.

2018-03-18T03:21:44Z

Details, typo corrections, and clarifications.

Ywhateley: Details, typo corrections, and clarifications.

2018-03-18T03:20:55Z

Details, typo corrections, and clarifications.

@@ Line 104: / Line 104: @@
 * Something strange is going down at the old Corbitt mine, closed under mysterious circumstances during the American Civil War. A group of intrepid Civil War veterans, prospectors, bandits, gunslingers, drifters, and/or other Western adventurers are hired to find out what is happening, and fix it, so the mine can be re-opened....  ("[[The Haunting (aka The Haunted House) (Scenario)|The Haunting]]" scenario)
 * It might be a fun scenario to see what happens if Western outlaws were to meet Herbert West's reanimated horrors.... (''Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter'')
-* A Wild West showman hires the investigators (a group of aging cowboys, actors, eccentric scientists, bounty hunters, and other adventurers0 to seek the origin of a strange creature discovered in an uncharted corner of the Western desert, for use in his show, but the gang find more than they bargain for in the form of a "Lost World", terrifying monsters, and a mysterious "Gypsy" cult led by a spell-casting mystic....  (''Valley of the Gwanji'')
+* A Wild West showman hires the investigators (a group of aging cowboys, actors, eccentric scientists, bounty hunters, and other adventurers to seek the origin of a strange creature discovered in an uncharted corner of the Western desert, for use in his show, but the gang find more than they bargain for in the form of a "Lost World", terrifying monsters, and a mysterious "Gypsy" cult led by a spell-casting mystic....  (''Valley of the Gwanji'')
 * As the end of an age draws near and the stars become right, a prophet's instructions guide a group of imperfect initiates on a dangerous path through a surreal post-apocalyptic Dreamland to the holy mountain where they hope to gain enlightenment from the undying leaders of the Cthulhu cult....  (''The Holy Mountain'')
 * A rough band of adventurers, outlaws, and eccentrics assembles to mine for gold or find a lost city of gold in the remote countryside, encountering bandits, "savage" tribes, the deadly dangers of nature, the weird threats of the mythos, and their own dark sides and madness as their greed and lust for treasure increases the closer they get to their goal.... (''Treasure of Sierra Madre'', ''Mckenna's Gold'')
 ==General Notes==

@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 * Scenarios/Campaigns:  see [[Weird West]], [[Gaslight]], [[Cthulhu End Times]]
 * TVTropes: ([http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeirdWest link])
 ===Film List===

@@ Line 65: / Line 65: @@
 * the recycled plots for science fiction alluded to earlier (as seen in science fiction everywhere from the rocket-ships-and-rayguns of the pulp era, to the "Wagon Train to the Stars" of ''Star Trek'' and the space-settlers of ''Lost in Space'' to the Cyberpunk era and beyond);
 * the "Spaghetti" Western, an avant-garde and often highly cynical and very dark re-examination of the traditional American Western of the type most famously and stylishly produced by European (especially Spanish and Italian) film-makers;
 * similarly recycled plots for fantasy settings (where swords-and-sorcery and orcs stand in for six-guns and "savage Indians");
 * horror stories that use the western setting as a backdrop for Gothic tales of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, mummies and zombies, Big Foot, and more;
 * "Steampunk", alternate-history, and other such tales of science-fiction technology, in the form of either wondrous and helpful inventions, or dangerous mad science gone terribly wrong....
 * the post-apocalyptic science fiction genre (beginning with the Mad Max films, where nameless wanderers, souped-up cars and crazed wastelands gangsters and mutants can be directly compared to the "Spaghetti" Western's sheriffs and gunslingers, horses and revolvers, and desperadoes and savages....)

@@ Line 56: / Line 56: @@
 == "Lovecraftian" Analysis ==
 <!--Topics to cover can include comparisons to the historically overlapping [[Gaslight]] genre and the thematically overlapping [[Southern Gothic]] genre; some reference to the post-apocalyptic wasteland film genre, and explore some of the characteristic themes (sunlight is closely allied with death; corruption and horror can be found walking proudly in the open; being undead is just another law for outlaws to ignore....) -->
-The Western genre was one of America's most distinctive literary inventions and one of the first and most successful incarnations of what would become known as "pulp" fiction, often blurring the lines between tales of epic conflicts between good and evil boiled down to a gunfight in the center of town, ghost stories, and strange adventures into the unknown.  The Western story cast a long shadow over pulp fiction, with a significant part of even pulp science fiction being infamous for taking the form of recycled western stories with ray-guns, rocket ships, and ferocious aliens taking the place of six-guns, horses, and "savage Indians".
+The Western genre was one of America's most distinctive literary inventions and one of the first and most successful incarnations of what would become known as "pulp" fiction, often blurring the lines between tales of epic conflicts between good and evil boiled down to a gunfight in the center of town, often mixed with ghost stories and other strange adventures into the unknown.  The Western story cast a long shadow over pulp fiction, with a significant part of even pulp science fiction being infamous for taking the form of recycled western stories with ray-guns, rocket ships, and ferocious aliens taking the place of six-guns, horses, and "savage Indians".
 [[Ambrose Bierce]] and [[Robert E. Howard]] (dubbed "Six-Gun Bob" by his friend, [[H.P. Lovecraft]]) would perhaps be some obvious places to look for a modern mix of Western and Mythos fiction, and Lovecraft's own "[[Beast in the Cave (fiction)]]" and other stories certainly fall under the description, but strange tales of strange creatures, lost civilizations, weird peoples with weirder legends, magic and sorcery, UFOs, bizarre and terrifying spirits, and other standard tropes of modern weird fiction centering around the unexplored regions of the New World are perhaps older than Columbus' voyages, with the imaginations of sailors and other explorers even into ancient times no doubt fired by the excitement and terror of the unknown regions before them.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 <!-- Used mainly for generally non-Lovecraftian film genres that can still be useful for creative story-tellers.  -->
-[[File:Fieldsofthenephilim dawnrazor .jpg|thumb|200px|right|[[Fields of the Nephilim]]: the 1980s Goth Rock act mixed Spaghetti Western and Apocalyptic imagery with obscure references to black magic, fallen angels, and the Cthulhu Mythos....]]
+[[File:Fieldsofthenephilim dawnrazor .jpg|thumb|200px|right|[[Fields of the Nephilim]]: the 1980s Goth Rock act mixed Spaghetti Western and Apocalyptic imagery with obscure references to black magic, fallen angels, and the Cthulhu Mythos in their version of the Weird West....]]
 ==Summary==

@@ Line 52: / Line 52: @@
 * ''[[The Village (2004 film)]]''  Members of a remote pioneer community are threatened by the strange creatures that inhabit the surrounding forest under an uneasy truce when one villager enters the forest and breaks the pact.
 * ''[[The Burrowers (2008 film)]]''   In the American western Dakota Territories, a rescue party sets out to find a family of settlers that has vanished from their home under mysterious circumstances.
 == "Lovecraftian" Analysis ==

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 ** ''[[Devil's Gulch: Basic Roleplaying Adventures in the Weird Wild West]]''
 ** ''[[The Good, the Bad and the Utterly Insane]]''
-** ''[[Down Dusty Trails]]''
+** ''[[Down Darker Trails]]''
 ** ''[[Cthulhu End Times]]'' (the post-apocalyptic sci-fi genre often draws from westerns for mood, theme, story, and inspiration)
 ** [[Gaslight]] (the Gaslight and Western eras were roughly contemporary with each other, and can be thought of as very different takes on the same era)

@@ Line 130: / Line 130: @@
 [[Category:Film:WildernessBackwoods]]
 [[Category:Film:Desert]]
 [[Category:Film:GothicHorror]]
 [[Category:Film:ScienceFiction]]

@@ Line 23: / Line 23: @@
 * ''[[Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948 film)]]'' - In this classic adventure film, two rough-and-tumble, down-on-their-luck wanderers meet up with an eccentric veteran prospector in Mexico and head into the Sierra Madre mountains to find gold. Although they discover treasure, they also find danger, death, and madness...
 * ''Rawhide (1959 series)'' - A cast of cowhands, including a young Clint Eastwood, meet adventure and danger on their cattle drives; some episodes of the show could get dark, artistic, and even Gothic in tone, including ghost stories, stories about Bigfoot and other monsters, cursed herds of cattle glowing with St. Elmo's Fire during deadly storms, and more....
-* ''Bonanza (1959 series)'', episode "Dark Star ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0529530/ S1E31])" - "Little Joe comes upon a gypsy girl who, frightened, runs and falls, knocking herself unconscious; when she wakes, they discover that she believes she is bewitched, due to her birth under the titular "dark star", and so do her people, who have banished her. Little Joe, smitten, must rescue her from this belief, her people, and someone posing as a wolf."
+* ''Bonanza (1959 series)'', episode "Dark Star ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0529530/ S1E31])" - "Little Joe comes upon a gypsy girl who, frightened, runs and falls, knocking herself unconscious; when she wakes, they discover that she believes she is bewitched, due to her birth under the titular "dark star", and so do her people, who have banished her. Little Joe, smitten, must rescue her from this belief, her people, and someone posing as a werewolf."
 * ''Curse of the Undead (1959 film)'' - A cow-town preacher shoots a custom bullet at a vampire gunfighter in the Old West.
 * ''A Fistful of Dollars (1964 film)'' - The Man With No Name (Clint Eastwood), a wandering gunfighter, plays two rival families against each other in a town torn apart by greed, pride, and revenge.