The Frightening Frontier: Five Horror Westerns to Stream This Week

The isolation of the Wild West, the ever-present danger of starvation, unforgiving terrain, and the rougher way of life in period settings make westerns well suited to the horror genre. Yet it’s not often that the two genres cross paths; the horror western is a niche subgenre compared to horror’s other genre pairings, like the […] The post The Frightening Frontier: Five Horror Westerns to Stream This Week appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Apr 7, 2025 - 19:59

The Frightening Frontier: Five Horror Westerns to Stream This Week

The isolation of the Wild West, the ever-present danger of starvation, unforgiving terrain, and the rougher way of life in period settings make westerns well suited to the horror genre. Yet it’s not often that the two genres cross paths; the horror western is a niche subgenre compared to horror’s other genre pairings, like the horror-comedy.

Even the horror western’s more well known entries, like Near Dark or Ravenous, don’t appear on streaming often. Luckily, there are plenty of other entries in the horror western category on streaming, some overlooked, that capture the tension, isolation, and danger of the wild frontier.

Here’s where to stream five of them this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

Bone Tomahawk – AMC+, Hoopla, Netflix, Pluto TV, Roku Channel

Bone Tomahawk

When unseen attackers swoop in one night and steal horses and a few town residents, the town sheriff (Kurt Russell) sets off with a small search party to rescue them. The journey getting there is filled with injury, harsh conditions, and ruthless raiders. None of it prepares them for the vicious clan they’ll have to battle for their lives and the lives of the townsfolk they’ve come to save. If you thought you’d seen it all, Bone Tomahawk proves otherwise with some seriously creative use of gore and violence. This movie is pure western, right up until the horror barrels into you like a locomotive.

The Burrowers – Fandango at Home

The Burrowers

Before video game writer J.T. Petty scared the pants off gamers with the Outlast series, he helmed this 2008 horror western set in 1879. With a cast full of names like Clancy Brown, Doug Hutchison, Jocelin Donahue, and more, The Burrowers follows a rescue party searching for a family that went missing under strange circumstances from a still unexplored territory. It’s not hostile Native Americans behind the disappearances, though, but a species of monstrous underground dwelling creatures. It’s the perfect merging of the two genres; the mounting tension between American soldiers and Native Americans makes for a great backdrop to the unique monster mythology that provides the supernatural terror.

Ghosts of Mars – Roku Channel

Ghosts of Mars

John Carpenter is no stranger to westerns, having leaned into the style and tropes of the genre for films like Assault on Precinct 13 and John Carpenter’s Vampires. Ghosts of Mars blends the western with sci-fi action, using Mars as an updated vision of the Wild West to set the stage for a lethal siege set at a remote, lawless outpost. A train factors heavily into the film’s climax, even. It’s retro storytelling meets futuristic style, creating a unique tone that audiences didn’t know what to do with in 2001. It’s the type of Carpenter movie where the possessed miners self-mutilate and feature character names like “Big Daddy Mars,” and boasts a cast that includes Ice Cube, Pam Grier, Clea Duvall, Jason Statham, and Natasha Henstridge. It’s not Carpenter’s greatest, but it is a lot of cheeky fun and makes for one of the more overlooked entries in horror westerns.

Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat – Tubi

Sundown the Vampire in Retreat

Director Anthony Hickox (Waxwork, Hellraiser III) has a blast with his high concept horror comedy that sees vampires living in the reclusive desert town Purgatory. They seek a peaceful life, with the plan to get an artificial blood factory in operation. Everything goes off without a hitch until Van Helsing’s descendant, Robert Van Helsing (Bruce Campbell), arrives in town. It’s a vampire western horror comedy that lovingly pokes fun at vampire tropes. The simple setup becomes anything but thanks to town politics, new tourists, and Van Helsing’s irresistibility to a vampire (Deborah Foreman). David Carradine presides over the vampire hijinks as Count Jozek Mardulak. Sundown trades the nihilistic grit of your conventional western for lighthearted vampire fun.

The Wind – AMC+, Kanopy, Shudder

Lizzy is a resourceful woman living on a remote stretch of land in the late-1800s. The area is so untamed that the wind never seems to stop howling. Lizzy begins to suspect an evil presence has taken root between the howling and the isolation, though her husband dismisses her concerns as mere superstition. When a newlywed couple arrives at a nearby homestead, their presence amplifies Lizzy’s fears, setting into motion a shocking chain of events. Directed by Emma Tammi (Five Nights at Freddy’s), this indie chiller takes a slow-burn approach to psychological terror. Think something in the vein of Repulsion but on the frontier.

The post The Frightening Frontier: Five Horror Westerns to Stream This Week appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.