High Plains Drifter (1973)

Clint Eastwood has long been a real hero of mine, so I’m delighted to be able to add to the Lagoon a film that he not only starred in but also directed. I concede that High Plains Drifter is probably more of a mystical Western than a Western-based horror film but the proficiency of its supernatural foundations are such that it more than merits a mention here.

Eastwood reprises his ‘Man With No Name’ drifter and slots him pretty effortlessly onto the conveyor belt of the ‘spaghetti western’; an isolated town is terrorised by a gang of marauding bandits, the sheriff offers a feeble shield, the stranger is received warily but eventually rides to the rescue, etc. However, Eastwood wanted this to appear to be a conventional Western (hence his decision to take the lead) so that the power of the underlying mysticism leaks out only sporadically and put the audience on the back foot. The result is that the viewer knows that something is not quite right as the story develops and that the Western leitmotif is a cover for something much more unnerving (I’d add here that as a conventional Western it works very too but I leave it to the Cactus Lagoon or some other Western movie blog to develop that further). Those familiar with the earlier Play Misty For Me will be aware that Eastwood has a real talent for threading a tinge of fear through what appear to be pretty simplistic plots, and with Drifter he is just as successful in building up to the final-third of the film when the ghost story places itself out more blatantly.

Eastwood also grasped the fact that Westerns have a very good head start when it comes to creating creepy atmospheres, from the eerie isolation and desolation of their towns through to the inescapable terror of omnipresent danger. Drifter uses its setting to tremendous effect, with the Stranger’s haunting entrance and departure rivalling those of better known visual treats like Laurence of Arabia. Combined with fine performances from the main protagonists and a script which provides more than enough momentum to compensate for the sedate pace of the action, High Plains Drifter is a mystical and haunting film which provides a model for those seeking to cast conventional myths and legends in an unconventional setting.