By MICHAEL GINGOLD
The horror/Western is currently making its way along the festival trail.
A TOWN CALLED PURGATORY next screens as part of Creature Feature Weekend, which takes place April 19-21 in Pennsylvania, with filmmakers Ken Arnold and Dan De Luca in attendance. Actor (THE SOPRANOS) turned director Matt Servitto helmed the movie from a screenplay by De Luca, based on a story by Arnold; the three also produced and co-star. The cast additionally includes Kevin Jiggetts, Jeff Ricketts and Maria Lohn; the synopsis: “In the haunting aftermath of the Civil War, principled Yankee lawman Beau Riffen [Arnold] joins forces with Cody Parnum [De Luca], a tormented ex-Confederate tracker. Their quest to apprehend notorious train robbers leads them to Purgatory, a town eerily deserted. Amidst the silence, they cross paths with a lone African-American trapper and a prisoner harboring secrets who whispers of an ancient menace. As the shadows of Purgatory tighten, an impending confrontation with ‘Yee Naaldlooshii’–The Skinwalker–beckons, testing bonds of trust and humanity in their gripping fight for survival.”
The film’s central trio previously collaborated on the award-winning vampire horror/comedy THE NIGHT WATCHMEN, and when they decided to reteam on a scary Western, they were inspired by the circumstances and constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic. “To us, this was a challenge, not an obstacle,” De Luca says. “Those constraints would require one location, a small cast and the ability to isolate from the public. The story inevitably mirrors that sense of unease and isolation that we felt during lockdown, and this fed into the narrative, pushing us to explore themes of confinement, the wariness of others and the unknown.”
The setting was also sparked by Arnold’s co-starring role in the 2019 Western THE MARSHAL. “The inspiration for the film came from a blend of classic spaghetti Westerns and horror folklore,” he explains, “aiming to work in a unique genre fusion that hasn’t been widely explored. The development from story to screenplay involved extensive brainstorming sessions over video calls, sharing articles and videos that we had read and watched until our visions aligned. We were both passionate about keeping the narrative tightly woven around the characters, which is not often deeply explored in most low-budget horror films, making sure to delve deep into the actual struggles of Americans during the time right after the Civil War from multiple perspectives.”
We’ll keep you posted about A TOWN CALLED PURGATORY’s distribution!
