10 Best Horror Westerns
5. The Wind
Released in 2018, the sparse chilling Western horror The Wind was the directorial debut of Emma Tammi.
The film manages to make the endless expanse of the open frontier, once a space of endless potential, into a terrifying trap of the unknown.
Its story follows a strong frontierswoman who gradually unravels into a paranoid, nervy shell of her former self as she is left alone in the empty plains.
Only she may not be alone, as the titular wind comes to represent some form of malevolent unseen entity which is trying to drive her and her family off the land they've stolen. It's a chilling postcolonial horror premise, one which makes literal the implication of various other Western horrors: that the land itself will reject its new inhabitants and can always drive them away, or worse, if pushed.
An intense combination of supernatural horror and psychological thriller, this enigmatic film never completely reveals the nature of its threats and instead leaves the viewer wondering how much of its horror was real and how much was the projection of a guilty conscience.