Director J.T. Petty can’t believe we haven’t seen a wave of western-horror mashups.
“It’s such an instinctive idea for me. It’s a time before cell phones, and there’s isolation and fear,” Petty says. “It’s valuable to get horror fans off familiar territory.”
So Petty created “The Burrowers,” a smart blend of a traditional horror film and an old West quest a la “The Searchers.”
The film, which hits DVD April 21, scored a coveted slot in last year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), but that wasn’t enough to garner a theatrical release stateside.
Petty (“Soft for Digging”) spiced up the DVD release by creating a prequel to the movie, now available at FearNet.com
“Blood Red Earth” is set decades before the action in “The Burrowers,“ but it carries on the themes presented in the film – ground-dwelling creatures which stun their prey to be eaten at a later date. The prequel took just three days to shoot, although it looks as polished as something snipped from a theatrical release.
The film’s dialogue is in a Native American tongue (Lakota), hardly catnip for mainstream horror fans. But Petty says FearNet.com gave him creative freedom to do as he pleased with the short.
The director hopes to continue working across media platforms. a way for him to “widen the universe” of his projects.
But it’s also born out of pragmatism.
“We’re entering a time when you have to convince people to ingest your commercials,“ he says.
Tomorrow: Petty examines the current horror movie scene and lets WWTW know what’s really in a name these days.
(Photo: Top, right – J.T. Petty. Bottom, left – Clancy Brown and William Mapother co-star in “The Burrowers,” a smart mashup of the western and horror genres.)
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