Into the Badlands

This was not a well done western. You've got this nut riding around in the blazing sun in a buggy with a parasol over it, killing people for his own reasons. You've got this same person sitting in a snow cave during a blizzard, cutting off pieces of his anatomy which have been frostbitten. Then you've got some woman in a house out in the middle of somewhere shooting wolves that are not there. What is the point of this film? Couldn't Bruce Dern find something better to do? This was a waste of film.

This movie is a bit of an odd duck - it is sort of like an episode or two of "Twilight Zone" masquerading as a western. Nothing wrong with that, it's just that the various story threads in the movie never get developed to their fullest.

However, what this movie lacks in the way of compelling story development, it more than makes up for with a very rich, absorbing Old West atmosphere. There is just something about the feel of this film - the photography, the costumes, the weapons, the Old West sets and real western locales (New Mexico), the expressions on people's faces... Call it a victory of style over substance... In any case, I thoroughly enjoyed the "look and feel" of this movie from start to finish. Watching the movie, there were more than a few times where I felt myself being transported back to a different place and time. I just wish the rich story development of a good western-genre movie such as "Unforgiven" (1992) with Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman, could have been woven into "Into the Badlands," as that would have completed this film and would have ultimately made for one very awesome Western movie.

But even in its current configuration, this movie is definitely worth checking out. I think you will be suitably dazzled by the Old West atmosphere that is conveyed in the film. Just don't expect a dazzling story to complement it.

I love finding offbeat half-forgotten gems where I wouldn't think to look for them. And I wouldn't think to look for them in the 90's because it's generally a pretty bad decade for westerns and certainly not in the field of made-for-TV horror western hybrids because most of their kind wield their western part as an exotic backdrop against which are played the same generic horror clichés. And I love offbeat gems even more when they're rough and unpolished and full of flaws. Everyone can love a masterpiece but it takes a little something to love a movie like INTO THE BADLANDS. A lot of the dialogue is awfully stilted, characters seem like they're reading verse from a page, the love story between outlaw on the run and worldweary whore in the first segment is produced on demand, the grey paint slapped on the faces of the saloon patrons on the last segment that makes them look like zombies adds a needless horror hijink too literal and cheesy it almost detracts from the actual menacing situation. And yet through all this rides Bruce Dern in his ghostly cart, the blackclad Bounty Hunter tying together the three segments of this anthology. And with him comes a love for vivid colors, cool blues and hot yellows, and fluid camera-work; a love of stylization as an end in itself; a love for pure western iconography (for eerie ghost towns and strange horsemen riding into town and open prairies and funerals in small weedy graveyards) and Gothic atmosphere galore; an affection for old EC Comics style supernatural twists. All this geared not towards a realistic gritty western but a cinematic Gothic horror fable that takes place in the Old West.

Yikes! I just kept waiting for something to happen. Never did! The old western atmosphere was the only thing worth anything. No story line, no plot, characters that go nowhere. You have to wonder what ever makes actors, a director or movie production company think this is going to be something worth spending money, time and talent on.

Which is perhaps the most memorable quote in this movie. Into the Badlands is a fun, and very unique Western. The first of its kind I've ever seen. All across the screen are faces that we all know. Bruce Dern, Mariel Hemmingway, Helen Hunt, and Dylan McDermott. All of them helped add to the neatness of this Western motion picture. Bruce Dern, playing a bounty hunter named T.L. Barston, is perhaps my favorite out of the cast. And after that, Dylan McDermott as a fugitive named McComas is my favorite. Both of them did a very fine job in their roles, especially Bruce Dern. He just did it perfectly. Into the Badlands is a very unique, yet entertaining Western, and one I wouldn't mind viewing again.