HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (Is It Horror?) in '70s Horror and Sci-Fi Forum

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HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (Is It Horror?)

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amarok		#81	[-]
Jan 29 13 9:38 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Some writers/literary critics consider a "ghost story" to be different from a "horror story," though the two could certainly be the same. Maybe one could carry this idea to the cinema. HPD might be a ghost story, but not a flat-out horror (though certainly weird and eerie). There are some films that are just going to remain ambiguous. I've always been of the "Of course JAWS is a horror film" camp, but on thinking back -- if the "barrel chase" with its jaunty, happy, chase music had been played out in any ordinary horror flick, it would have been laughed out of the theater. JAWS got away with it because it was more than a horror or monster film. And DRIFTER is more than an ordinary western.
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Grant		#82	[-]
Jan 31 13 9:55 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Godziwolf wrote: Grant wrote: Not to have a one-track mind (though I seem to), but if you DO subscribe to the theory that he's a ghost, where does the situation with the two women put him? Could he be considered an incubus, so to speak? His motives and back story seem inconsistent with an incubus. I sort of subscribe to the idea that he's a corporeal spirit of vengeance. Well, I didn't mean the word literally exactly. But if he IS supernatural, and he is "corporeal," then maybe he (to put it crudely) makes the most of this mission he's on when it comes to the two of them. Of course, as far as I understand, one of them has a big part in the town's guilty secret. But (and this is a touchy area) even if she DIDN'T have an especially big part in it, maybe that "Why don't you watch where you're going?!" moment could have been enough to lead to what he does. After all, he's already there to rape the town FIGURATIVELY, so....
mrbluesky		#83	[-]
Jan 31 13 11:12 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I would say that he is a man; Good and Evil, Fate and Glory made manifest in the flesh. In one sense he is an evil man come to a corrupt town where Evil has had its way with the people and works the Devil's will. In another sense, he is the Devil incarnate. The tale is best read not as either/or but as both, for that is the closest rendering of the mystery of existence. JBS
vampirelover		#84	[-]
Mar 18 13 7:45 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	High Plains Drifter remains one of my favorite westerns. I guess I will always treat it having a supernatural tilt to it. And his avenging gunfighter character is not a nice guy. Thankfully. And in a smiliar vein. Any fans of the Twilight Zone episode 'The Grave' with Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleff, James Best and Strother Martin. Marvin goes to the grave of a recently killed outlaw who townsfolk believe Marvin was afraid of. He goes to the grave that night and plants a knife in it. When Marvin doesn't return to collect the bet he made with his friends the next morning, they go to the grave at dawn with the late outlaw's sister. They find Marvin's body by the grave, with his long coat on the grave with his knife through it. Van Cleef's character tries to explain it as the wide blowing his coat over the grave in the dark. The sister counter with the wind blowing across the opposite direction then as it was that night. Did Marvin's character die of a heart attack or was it the hand of the dead outlaw reaching out from beyond the grave? A very well acted, written episode.
jamesbrummel		#85	[-]
Mar 18 13 9:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	wasn't it that he put the knife through his coat by mistake, then when he tried to get up he got scared because he couldn't?
Jay Maggio		#86	[-]
Mar 18 13 9:38 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	oh I always thought Clint was the ghost of the Sheriff come back for revenge!! but is it a supernatural western, I guess so! Although Clint seems all too human to be a ghost in the classic sense, but then he could have been the Sheriff's son or brother.ok good case of ambiguity...(im stick w/ghost.)
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classicboi1		#87	[-]
Mar 19 13 2:11 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	What I don't understand is if Clint was the sheriff getting whipped then why wouldn't anyone in the town know who he was when he comes there?
Rakshasa		#88	[-]
Mar 19 13 8:48 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	classicboi1 wrote: What I don't understand is if Clint was the sheriff getting whipped then why wouldn't anyone in the town know who he was when he comes there? I have a very simple answer for that question: Who's to say a vengeful spirit would come back looking exactly how he did in life? Links To All The Classic Monster Stills I've Posted: http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/30758
Jay Maggio		#89	[-]
Mar 19 13 11:00 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	exactly rak, thats what I thought, didnt matter cuz those worthless cowards never helped the sheriff anyways!
VoodooRob		#90	[-]
Apr 6 13 4:37 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Regardless of whether it is or isnt, I wish they had made a lot more movies like it. The supernatural western is such an obvious, yet under used genre. Hellbilly Hollywood - write-ups, reviews, and random info on horror, sleaze, and grindhouse. From movies to video games to comics to trailers to music, HH covers it all.
Grant		#91	[-]
Apr 11 13 6:42 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	There's one question that I can't remember reading on this thread or elsewhere (and I didn't think of it either till lately). I mentioned that, supernatural or otherwise, he seems to be "corporeal" enough to have a big time with each of the two women. Well, what if, about nine months later, one of them presents the town with a "High Plains Drifter Jr."? Would the town simply be afraid to mess with the kid, would he / she become an outcast, or what?
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HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (Is It Horror?)