Directed by Matt Glass and Jordan Wayne Long
The horror western Ghosts of the Ozarks is a curiosity. It feels like a wholly original concept yet telegraphs all its plot movements. It is populated full of interesting characters with some pretty notable actors, but in their fun quirkiness, they play like one-note caricatures. And, in spending most of its time world-building, the film fails to propel the story in any dramatic or scary way.
It was a missed opportunity.
I rooted for this movie. It was one of my “Looking Forward To” movies of 2022. It’s funny how, at the beginning of the year, most of the great movies to come are complete unknowns. So, you start digging for what is scheduled to be released. Then you end up settling on picking an interesting concept that shows promise.
The idea for this film was compelling. A young black man, James McCune (Thomas Hobson), who risked life and limb in the civil war as a medic to become a doctor, travels to the remote Ozark hamlet, Norfork. Finally arriving, he finds his Uncle Matthew (Phil Morris), who is the leader of the remote enclave, who has summoned him to be the town’s physician. It is a town where everyone appears to be treated equally, and everyone knows their place within the community. It seems a bit too good to be true.
Norfolk is a mining town made successful by the harvesting of natural gas. Mysterious ghosts hold the town in check, that appear within red vapor mists that abduct and mutilate the unwary who travel into the woods. Is this a curse? Or are they protectors? The locals idolize the ghosts as guardians and guides for the town. Despite these strange conditions, nobody much questions their motivations.
The town is populated with an assortment of eccentric citizens including the blind barkeep Torv (Tim Blake Nelson, Oh Brother Where Art Thou), his no-nonsense wife Lucille (Angela Bettis – May, 12 Hour Shift), the eager tailor Douglas (David Arquette, Scream), and the hunting brother and sister duo of the brave Annie (Tara Perry, 12 Hour Shift) and the hulking William (Joseph Ruud, WWE). There is a multitude of other characters, but herein lies the problem. This movie spends so much time introducing new characters that it runs out of runway to tell a fundamentally compelling story. By the time the film introduces everybody, the movie is half over.
The central story revolves around Douglas, who struggles with being in a too-good-to-be-true environment and befriending the tomboyish and sweet Annie who convinces him that again, things are too good to be true. But neither of them can really put a finger on what is going on. Somebody in town holds a whole host of secrets and will resort to threats and murder to see it through. Cue mustache twirls now.
Ghosts of the Ozarks reminds me of the ’90s show Northern Exposure, with a slightly creepy vibe. Despite all the film’s good intentions, the connective tissue is paper thin. You can see every story beat coming. Even though the story keeps the villain under wraps for the first half of the movie, you identify him right away. The script badly telegraphs the nefarious actions.
Attempts at humorous banter fall flat. The erstwhile talented cast occasionally looked like they were waiting for their lines. Key characters pop up exactly when you would expect them to return. The film rushed the ending. The conclusion is hackneyed to the point of being a Scooby Doo denouement.
And yet I rooted for this movie and for the characters. I became enamored with the quirky folks of Norfork. I just wished they had something more to do, in the end. The movie looks terrific. After watching the extra features, I realized how much heart and effort was put into making the sets and costumes to make them look as wonderful as they did. The director, Long, enlisted his dad and a couple of his good friends to build the whole town by scratch in a back lot in Arkansas.
For a modest budget indie film, it managed to round up a respectable cast, and put them in great costumes on great sets… but it really needed a new script. Interestingly, this was greenlit based upon a short film that also starred Perry and Hobson, but it doesn’t really take on any of the plot threads of the short film. That’s probably just as well, for, despite the full feature being a bit of a plot shambles, the short film was similarly high on style and low on substance.
I just feel like a mulligan is in order. Try this again. Employ true menace. Keep the characters. Keep the look. Hire Quentin Tarantino for a script.
Ghosts of the Ozarks is not rated, but would probably earn a PG-13. There is some violence and a little bit of gore, but there isn’t anything that would be particularly offensive to teens and above. Ghosts of the Ozarks is available streaming on Amazon Prime.