Above Snakes, the Graphic Novel

He is a man called Dirt, who has a spirit animal named Speck. Speck the vulture isn’t very spiritual. He is all about revenge. He also seems to be corporeal, at least to some extent, but Speck came to Dirt in a rather uncanny manner when the grieving husband swore revenge on the gang that killed his wife. Their long quest might finally come to an end, one way or another, in Sean Lewis’s graphic novel, Above Snakes, illustrated by Hayden Sherman, which goes on-sale today as a tradepaper bind-up.

Dirt is part of fraternity of drifters seeking vengeance on the high plains surrounding the town of Genesis, but he is one of the few who is serious enough to have a companion like Speck. Not surprisingly, he is not the only one out for payback from the Above Snakes Gang. So is gun-toting, tough-talking Annie, who might be interested in hooking up with Dirt, maybe in more ways than one.

There are a lot of black bandana-wearing Snakes to kill, so vengeance-seekers like Dirt always eventually meet a bad end. At least, that is what Tomb, the sinister medicine-show barker tells us, but he is not necessarily a reliable narrator. Regardless, there will definitely be blood.

Above Snakes is a fresh take on weird westerns, incorporating a great deal of dark spirit-based fantasy. It is not exactly horror per se, but Tomb’s carnival-style segments are definitely macabre in a Nightmare Alley kind of way. In some ways, Dirt’s story casts an ironic light on the pursuit of vengeance, very much like revisionist westerns, but when he actually gets some, it is cathartic, harkening back to traditional westerns.

Blackwood, Where the Wendigo Roams

You can dismiss Bigfoot, because footage like the Patterson/Gimlin video just looks staged, but don’t scoff at the Wendigo. The latter is an ancient Native legend that probably wasn’t handed down for no reason. Regardless, going into dak, shunned woods is a dangerous proposition. Of course, you can’t tell that to a bunch of outlaws (especially the racist ones), who are determined to blunder through the creature’s stomping grounds in search of gold. They are sure to find something in Chris Canfield’s Blackwood, which opens today in New York.

Dutch Wilder’s gang just pulled off a sensitive job for Sally Pickerton, not even knowing she is a woman. They are even more annoyed when she “offers” to bring them into a claim-jumping caper rather than pay for their services. Believing there is indeed gold in those hills, they reluctantly agree to her scheme. The problem is the hills in question are in the Blackwood Forest, which has a reputation for evil supernatural business with the local native population.

Nevertheless, Dowanhowee feels herself drawn there. She is the last of her tribe. As it happens, she recognizes one of Wilder’s thugs from his participation in the massacre of her people, so she takes advantage of the opportunity for some vengeance. As she flees the Wilder gang, she leads them directly into Wendigo territory.

And that’s about it. Blackwood definitely would have worked better if Canfield had a better command of mood. It is a pretty straightforward, hurtling-towards-the-inevitable narrative, without much foreboding or tension. As a further drawback, the wendigo creature design often does not look nearly as imposing as it should.

Ghosts of the Ozarks

Crude dictators directly instill fear in their subjects with their own brutality. The more subtly power-hungry try to harness an external fear to their own controlling advantage. The question is what fears do they cynically stoke? Some might point to terrorism or Covid (Glenn Greenwald would say both). In this case it is the monstrous ghosts that prey on the unwary outside the walls of a Reconstruction-era Arkansas town that help the boss keep everyone in-line throughout Matt Glass & Jordan Wayne Long’s Ghosts of the Ozarks, which releases on-demand and in select theaters this Thursday.

Dr. James McCune looks like a respectable medical professional, but he was deeply scarred by the Civil War—literally. Believing he lacks a place in the world, he accepts his Uncle Matthew’s invitation to replace his town’s doctor. Frankly, he barely makes to town alive, following a bizarre encounter with a monstrous shrouded figure. Once safe inside the protective walls, McCune finds his uncle serves as an unofficial mayor (and then some), whose words are followed without question, because he knows how to protect everyone from the ghosts.

Dr. McCune starts settling in to extent, thanks to the medical assistance and friendship of Annie, a healer who boldly lives outside the walls with her hulking brother William. He also finds some hospitality with the blind barkeep Torb and his wife Lucille. However, the whole thing about the monster-like “ghosts” understandably unsettles Doc McCune, who also starts to notice other suspicious activity around town.

The word for Ozarks is “weird,” starting with its bizarre portrayal Reconstruction-era characters and the unnamed border-state village. Initially, it also certainly seems to fall under the category of “Weird West,” but it weirdly gets less weird in the third act.

Regardless, there is some pretty creepy and inventive art and set design work going on. There is definitely some cool looking stuff in the film, which nicely serves its genre-straddling program. It also features some interesting performances, especially Tim Blake Nelson as the blind and emotionally damaged Torb. Angela Bettis (from Brea Grant’s 12-Hour Shift, which also involved Glass and Long) compliments him well as his world-weary wife.

The Pale Door, on Shudder

The Dalton Gang would be better off trying to rob two banks simultaneously in Coffeyville, Kansas than spending a night in this sinister town. There are no banks in “Potemkin,” but the bordello offers more dangers than mere communicable diseases in Aaron B. Koontz’s The Pale Door, which premieres tomorrow on Shudder.

In this Weird West, the Dalton family is much smaller. After the bloody prologue, only Duncan, the leader of the Dalton Gang, and his younger, straight-arrow brother Jake are still alive. However, Lester, a freed slave and fellow gang-member, has been like a surrogate father to Jake. Naturally, the one heist Jake volunteers to help with turns deadly dicey. They thought they were stealing some valuable cargo from its Pinkerton escorts, but they find a woman chained up in that trunk.

She is a strange one alright, but with Duncan slowly dying from a gut-shot, they agree to follow Pearl to her home town of Potemkin. Of course, entering town is the easy part. Leaving is another matter. The one-horse burg seems to consist entirely of a suspiciously hospitable brothel-saloon and an abandoned church. Needless to say, the ladies are not what they appear—and they are quite interested in Jake’s innocent blood.

The narrative of Pale Door (a reference to a Poe quote, the relevance of which will not be immediately obvious) is pretty standard stuff. An ancient coven of shape-shifting, blood-consuming witches preys on a pack of dumb cowboys. Eh.