A Town Called Purgatory is an entertaining genre-bender. It’s a solid western that combines plenty of horror elements and dashes of drama. Though the film does have some narrative threads that don’t quite land, it’s a fast-paced film with some impressive special effects.
Set just after the Civil War, the movie stars Ken Arnold as Beau Riffen and Dan De Luca as Cody Parnum. They embark on a quest to catch train robbers and wind up in in the mysterious town of Purgatory. They soon realize that the town is mostly deserted. In the various saloons and shops, they discover food that’s been rotting a long while. Eventually, however, they do encounter signs of life, including a trapper named Nicodemus Black (Kevin Jiggetts) and Anna Place (Maria Lohn), an outcast who tells the men that Purgatory has been terrorized by a Skinwalker.
As much as the film is a western, with plenty of shootouts, especially within the last 30 minutes, it’s also very much a creature feature. In the opening minutes, the monster hunts and murders a small group of men, and we see everything from its POV. For the most part, however, we don’t really see the creature, but this is effective. Instead, we see the bloody remains of the deaths the creature caused. Again, the special effects in this movie look really good and realistic.
Additionally, the set designs are another positive. The town of Purgatory looks and feels real. The production design, overall, depicts the era well. Watching this, you certainly feel like you’ve stepped into the late 19th Century. The film also deals with some of the racial conflicts of the Reconstruction era, especially since one of the main characters, Nicodemus, is Black. Meanwhile, the old ghosts of the Civil War hang over the film. Specifically, Cody is tormented by what he saw during the war and has major PTSD. De Luca handles these sequences well, but his character’s PTSD is a little too underutilized.
The film also has a lot of characters with their own goals and agendas. It works best when it mostly focuses on Beau, Cody, and Nicodemus, but as the film goes on, it introduces more and more characters and different threads. For instance, director Matt Servitto plays Frank Sparks, who blames the men for the death of his son and at one point, tortures Cody. This adds yet another layer, to the point that the plot starts to feel a little too convoluted, especially once Anna shares some of the town’s sordid history late in the film.
A Town Called Purgatory has a little too much going on, especially by its second half. That said, it successfully blends a lot of genres, specifically western, horror, and drama. It’s also an enjoyable creature feature with some gruesome kills that should please horror fans. This film is worth a stream and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
