I say this every time a horror-Western hybrid project is announced, but I love the idea of blending those two genres with each other. Whenever a horror-Western is released, I'm there for it. So I'm glad to hear that director Aaron B. Koontz is currently filming a horror-Western project called THE PALE DOOR in Oklahoma… and I'm made even more interested in this project by the fact that BUBBA HO-TEP (pictured above) author Joe R. Lansdale is executive producing it and serving as a creative and script consultant.
Written by Koontz, Cameron Burns, and Lansdale's son Keith Lansdale, THE PALE DOOR is about
a gang of cowboys and a mysterious woman who seek shelter in a seemingly uninhabited ghost town after a disastrous train robbery. Seeking help for their wounded leader they are surprised to stumble upon a welcoming brothel in the town’s square but soon discover that the town is home to a coven of witches and blood-thirsty wolves.
The thought of cowboys battling a coven of witches and blood-thirsty wolves is awesome to me. I wouldn't be as interested at this point if that plot were set in modern day, but put it in the Old West and I'm already hyped.
Devin Druid stars in THE PALE DOOR alongside Zachary Knighton, Melora Walters, Bill Sage, Pat Healy, Stan Shaw, Natasha Bassett, Noah Segan, and Tina Parker.
Koontz and co-writer Burns are producing the film with Ashleigh Snead, Matthew Thomas, Roman Dent, James Norrie, and Inderpal Singh.
The director had this to say about his movie:
I love the idea of mixing these two disparate worlds of horror and western, and to do so with the help of Joe and Keith Lansdale feels like the perfect devil’s playground. It’s 3:10 TO YUMA meets THE DESCENT, but doused and then set on fire with psychological horror. Once this gets going, it’s relentless."
I'll be keeping a close eye on THE PALE DOOR as it makes its way through production and toward release.
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