Unnatural (2024)

Now available on VOD

I’m a sucker for a good Western. Low budget, a lack of star-power, none of that really bothers me, so long as it hits high on the ol’ Yeehawometer. Likewise, I’m a sucker for a good vampire pic, pun only slightly intended. Mix the two, though, and you usually wind up with more Cookie’s Camp Mush than a Texas T-bone. There have been some decent genre mashups over the years, though- take 2005’s The Burrowers as a fine example. So I went into 2024’s Unnatural with my breath held, just in case I was wading into undead horse-hockey. 

Unnatural (not to be confused with the long-running Supernatural) follows the adventures of Dan Remington (not to be confused with Dean Winchester, although I see where you might slip up), played with Rooster Cogburn-esque grit by former WWE/F / ECW wrestler Al Snow. Al Snow’s most memorable gimmick back in the day was carrying around a severed mannequin head named “Head,” that only he could hear speaking. Dan Remington is an aging cowboy surrounded by the ghosts of his loved ones that only he can hear, although he can’t see them. These ghosts can be seen by his granddaughter, Jessy Remington (Who, I might add, is credited as “Jessy Winchester” on IMDB- see, told you it’s easy to do!), played by Charlee Carmicle, who while she can see the ghosts, can’t hear them. They’re also accompanied by her brother, Junior Remington, played by Samuel Wilson, also semi-affectionately called “Turd” by his grandfather. Junior is gifted with weaponized autism in a form that puts the kid in 2018’s The Predator to shame, because he uses his hyper-intelligence to build his grandpa new monster-hunting weapons like silver knuckledusters and frontier-era napalm, although he doesn’t recognize social cues such as knowing when to keep his mouth shut when he’s hiding behind a bar from the bad guys. Oh, and they’re all on a journey to the town of Possum Trot together to find and kill a vampire after the Remington kids’ parents are slaughtered by thankfully ill-lit and briefly seen werewolves, because Grandpa, it turns out, does this kinda thing because he’s on a Mission From God, a la Jake and Joliet Blues, but with much fewer song and dance numbers- sorry, Howling VII fans.  

 In Possum Trot, they encounter kinda-sorta conflicted former good guy / now strangely-sleepy-during-the-day bad guy Sheriff Roddy Hawken, played with way more gusto than he was probably getting paid for by actor John Wells. I’m unfamiliar with Wells, but that’s a shame, because he was pretty good in the role, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him given better scenery to chew. That’s not to say that the scenery was terrible- in fact, the art direction was pretty well done, and the crew turned the town of Possum Trot (Yes, that’s the extremely awesome name of the actual town where this was shot) into… Western-era Possum Trot very convincingly. In fact, most of the cast itself was pretty convincing, and the film was solidly written by writer Whit Whitman. Unfortunately, director Whit Whitman must not have been keeping that close an eye on his cinematographer, as a lot of the shots in the movie were badly-framed, poorly-lit, and even clearly out of focus, ironically. There were even shots which seemed to just… not be there. Early on in the orphaning werewolf attack, there were plain blank spots that might as well have said “insert shot here,” as well as one sequence later on which seemed to cut off mid-sentence. And the special effects were… well, I hate to even use the word “special.” They were low-budget, and you can only do so much with spit and bailing wire. 

However, I have to say that I enjoyed this first outing of the Remington Family, overall. Everybody involved seemed to be having a great deal of fun, and took the whole thing just-seriously-enough for it to be a worthwhile ride. Unnatural was well-paced, routinely funny, and had that almost-just-right mix of Horror and Western, for my tastes. In fact, it reminded me a lot of an old-school role playing game called Deadlands: The Weird West, which I’m sure Whit Whitman was at least familiar with, as he was both a former writer for former D&D publisher TSR, and the director of 2017’s RPG-themed comedy Knights of the Dinner Table 

 I say “first outing,” because it turns out that the Remingtons are due back soon in Unnatural II: The Gates of Hell. I can only hope that they ride back in with an increased budget, the same brisk, humorous writing, a cast spurred on by the successes of their first outing, and a better technical eye behind the camera. I’ll no doubt be in the saddle for the next rodeo. After all, if you can be mad at a movie with lines like “Or maybe the Sheriff is in cahoots with the vampire!,” then you’re likely riding on the wrong range, friend. My Yeehawometer was sufficiently filled.