Terror on the Prairie (Michael Polish, 2022)

[Mr Sausage]

As mentioned here, Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire have made good on their promise to produce films starring Gina Carano. What caught me by surprise is that Michael Polish of the Polish Brothers directed it. Domino didn’t find that so surprising, and he’d know better than I would, but as someone with fond memories of Northfork, I was taken aback. And curious. So I watched it.

The film is basically Straw Dogs with clear-cut heroes and villains. Carano, newly brought by her husband to a cabin in the prairies, a landscape she hates and which alienates her, finds she has to protect hearth and home from a band of men, lead by Nick Searcy, who’re looking for her husband. Carano of course has no idea how to fight, but shows great presence of mind and becomes more adept as the film goes on. In an odd bit of stunt casting, the movie stars two MMA fighters as its central couple. Neither can act, but Carano has some screen presence.

My expectation for a conservative news site breaking into films would be crass popular entertainment, but the style here is one you’d think would alienate your average Daily Wire reader. It’s slow and stark, the pace deliberate, and the mood heavy and oddly contemplative. The film is composed of static shots that usually linger on their subject; the conversations are quiet and the emotions generally muted; pensive gazes are the norm. There is plenty of action, but it’s not pretty, and rarely propulsive. The film prefers the clumsiness of realism over slick choreography. Even the violence has a stark brutality meant to be offputting. This is an independent film without commercial ambitions or desire to appeal to a wide audience.

The big question obviously is whether the film is a right-wing allegory or otherwise ideologically conservative. Well…maybe? There are lines like: “Good and bad aren’t always so clear. Sometimes you wake up and realize you’re on the wrong side of things.” The point being that people make bad choices, but they can change, and should be celebrated for that, not condemned for their earlier mistakes. The dialogue sometimes talks as if the film were a moral gayzone, but there is little in the way of conflicted motivations or murky actions. It’s a mother protecting her house and children from men ready to do heinous things to them. Nick Searcy also gets a long speech where he lays out the war crimes of the Union and how the South’s nobility and belief in the rightness of its cause were no match for the Union’s barbaric tactics. He is the bad guy, indisputably, but the scene doesn’t play as critique, it plays as sincere, and not just because the motivation behind the group is revealed to be righteous revenge. It’s hard not to read stuff like this in the context of its makers, but, if I didn’t know about them, I’m not sure it’d be enough to suggest their presence.

The surprise of the month to find out Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire have produced a watchable movie. In it’s small-scale aims, it’s successful, a gritty, bleak revisionist western full of violence and sadness. But it’s not a movie I expect the average movie-goer to much like. The Western's a genre long out of favour, and the movie takes its visual cues from independent and art cinema. But lovers of Westerns are going to find the movie too unoriginal, and lovers of art cinema are going to find it too thin and unpleasant. Alt-right Shapiro fans won't like the dearth of culture war signifiers. The Keeping Room, an outwardly similar film that domino has even argued is conservative, is much richer and more interesting, and more deserving of one’s time.

[Mr Sausage]

A quick look at imdb and letterboxd shows me that Daily Wire subscribers and boosters liked this way less than I did, and much of my own interest was in the sheer oddity of the thing. Common complaints are that it’s boring, slow, has thin characters. Some say the lighting and directing was bad, but don’t say why (I thought they were fine). One chap was upset at how feminist the film is with its strong female character. Apparently if he wanted that, he wouldn’t go to the Daily Wire. Which raises an interesting point: this movie is more solidly second wave feminist than even movies from filmmakers trying to show their progressive chops. The film unequivocally makes Carano strong and competent (to the point it strains credulity a bit), and reverses typical gender roles so much it’s hard to believe it was an accident. It’s so weird for an alt-right propaganda machine dedicated to so-called traditional values to make a good old feminist revisionist western. The more I think about this movie, the weirder it is. How did this thing come about?

[therewillbeblus]

The big question obviously is whether the film is a right-wing allegory or otherwise ideologically conservative. Well…maybe? There are lines like: “Good and bad aren’t always so clear. Sometimes you wake up and realize you’re on the wrong side of things.” The point being that people make bad choices, but they can change, and should be celebrated for that, not condemned for their earlier mistakes.

This seems like it could be directly tied into the script to support Carano's "victimization by Cancel Culture", as viewed by her and her conservative allies, but I don't think it's a conservative stance. Sure, in our era as a product of the zeitgeist, conservatives are taking caustic stands against the entire movement, but Bryan Stevenson and other left-wing social justice advocates have been arguing the same point on the liberal battle fields long before conservatives took the ethos and recontextualized it to respond to threats that challenged their problematic behavior. I'm a vocal advocate against reducing human worth to a single act, but there's a difference between engaging in productive conversations and opting for rehabilitation pathways, vs. defensively reacting without accepting ownership, and hiding behind an inappropriately blown-up idea (to the point of becoming meaningless and all-encompassing, also see: "gaslighting") that gives one carte blanche to not grow or change, or even look in the mirror to acknowledge bias.

The funny thing about reading your takeaway is that it feels entirely fitting that conservatives tried to make a movie channeling their defenses against this movement, or their political ideals in some form, and then kinda.. didn't know what to do with them? 'Like, great, you can throw in a slight dig at "Cancel Culture" as you see it, but then what? I'd like to see the film myself before making assumptions, but I trust your process of impartial analyses, Sausage, and it's amusing to think of a team of conservatives trying to make a statement and then not knowing how to scald it beyond stealing Bryan Stevenson's most famous one-liner quotes. If anything, that shows the ankle-deep understanding they have over their defense, which is shallow defensive reactivity to being called out for poor behavior, and not an actual platform. I kinda wanna see this now.

[knives]

It does make sense in the context of Polish’s often weird politics in some of his recent films. For example the movie I saw before this one was another vanity project with the lead playing a notorious traitor and the film making a bizarre attempt to justify her which often makes it seem like a critique of the film’s own existence.

[Mr Sausage]

Which film are you talking about?

[knives]

American Traitor which I mistakenly assumed I posted about.

[Mr Sausage]

Oh, did you see Terror on the Prairie, then?

[knives]

I’m planning on doing do, but not yet. Just trying to add some context to what it sounds like is being said.

[Swift]

Huh, Daniel Day-Lewis' son is in this thing.

[wattsup32]

Is there any way to see this without joining the Daily Wire?

[Mr Sausage]

If you’re looking to get it through normal channels, the Daily Wire is the only place offering it. I wouldn’t recommend anyone give them the money, tho’.

[Matt]

* I changed my mind, I don’t want to be in this thread.

[ford]

Is there any way to see this without joining the Daily Wire?

The Russo Bros took a $50 million investment from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Should people avoiding watching THE GRAY MAN so as not to support one of the most violent, reactionary and tyrannical regimes in the world? Who make even Ben Shapiro’s wildest dreams look woke by comparison?

While I can’t stand stand shrill culture warriors like Shapiro, if they have the investment and resources to give platforms to worthy artists, I’m up for watching it.

[swo17]

Yeah, you can rationalize not paying for just about anything. If you don't want to support the Daily Wire, don't watch the movie. If you want to watch it, you should pay for it. Think of it as paying for their complacency if you like

[beamish14]

If you’re looking to get it through normal channels, the Daily Wire is the only place offering it. I wouldn’t recommend anyone give them the money, tho’.

I’ll just plop the kids in front of Chip Chilla, their wholesome cartoon about the evils of inclusivity and public education

[wattsup32]

The Russo Bros took a $50 million investment from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Should people avoiding watching THE GRAY MAN so as not to support one of the most violent, reactionary and tyrannical regimes in the world? Who make even Ben Shapiro’s wildest dreams look woke by comparison?

While I can’t stand stand shrill culture warriors like Shapiro, if they have the investment and resources to give platforms to worthy artists, I’m up for watching it.

Yeah, you can rationalize not paying for just about anything. If you don't want to support the Daily Wire, don't watch the movie. If you want to watch it, you should pay for it. Think of it as paying for their complacency if you like

To be clear, I would gladly pay to see it at an AMC or the Film Forum knowing full well that the money would end up in the pockets of Ben Shapiro. My problem is that I do not want to have signed up for anything I don't actually want to be signed up for. The same way I wouldn't sign up for MSNBC or Instagram just to watch this.

Those were a couple of hypersensitive, rhetorically charged reactions to a straightforward question.

[Maltic]

The big question obviously is whether the film is a right-wing allegory or otherwise ideologically conservative. Well…maybe? There are lines like: “Good and bad aren’t always so clear. Sometimes you wake up and realize you’re on the wrong side of things.” The point being that people make bad choices, but they can change, and should be celebrated for that, not condemned for their earlier mistakes. The dialogue sometimes talks as if the film were a moral gayzone, but there is little in the way of conflicted motivations or murky actions. It’s a mother protecting her house and children from men ready to do heinous things to them. Nick Searcy also gets a long speech where he lays out the war crimes of the Union and how the South’s nobility and belief in the rightness of its cause were no match for the Union’s barbaric tactics. He is the bad guy, indisputably, but the scene doesn’t play as critique, it plays as sincere, and not just because the motivation behind the group is revealed to be righteous revenge. It’s hard not to read stuff like this in the context of its makers, but, if I didn’t know about them, I’m not sure it’d be enough to suggest their presence.

It seemed anti-Confederate to me, so in that sense more West Coast Straussian than alt-right, a la this PragerU video on the causes of the war. But maybe I'm reading too much into the Daily Wire / Shapiro connection as well.

Agree with everything else you said. I kept comparing the film (unfavourably) to Old Henry, btw.

[Mr Sausage]

Funny you mention Old Henry. I came across it on Letterboxd while looking up this one and had it in mind to watch and compare.

[therewillbeblus]

That came to mind for me too, though I haven't seen the Polish yet. Old Henry definitely embraces basic Me and Mine conservatism as an understandable motivator behind Nelson's self-preservation, though I didn't think it did any more than graze the idea of whether or not past transgressions define one's selfhood. That isn't a complaint, but it's a theme the film does repeatedly, peripherally recognize and yet never really does much with it, so I wonder how much overlap there really is between at least the Carano nod of conservatively-defined 'cancel culture' and this absence of didactic commentary. Anyways, if this does become a point of comparison, here's what I wrote on that:

Old Henry doesn't reinvent the revisionist western genre, but it is an admirable effort that utilizes minimalism across the medium's offerings (dialog, setpieces, characters, action, information, set design) to weigh our drive for empathy against self-protection. The film's success is anchored by Tim Blake Nelson's complex performance; as a man who is hardened and has drafted a life by leaning into the latter margin of social distancing and mistrust, but finds sparse allure in commonalities between men with similar roots in personal history (something which, appropriately, also becomes a triggering repellent in the final act). Still, this is not the variable that ignites consequential action- that's the strength of mistrust and self-preservation for 'me and mine', with the communal moments shared with Curry simply supplying passive appreciation divorced from motivated decision-making (as a lesser Western orbiting around unreciprocated virtue in an existential 'change of heart/entire worldview' might deviate towards). The film at once reinforces a Hobbesian conservatism via antisocial proactive measures of survivalism, and validates the God/value-drives of morality that are the only reason people like Henry are able to carry on with the baggage of harm they carry; incongruous psychological parts that result in exactly the kind of ending their oil-and-water disharmony is destined to afford. Unfortunately there's little merit to draw upon outside of Nelson's performance that independently actualizes a grey worldview, so if you're a fan of the underappreciated actor, check this out- otherwise, it's not a priority.

[Mr Sausage]

The lines about past transgressions not defining people, they easily apply to Carano and her cancelling, but it occurs to me they could form part of a veiled allegory on America: that it found itself committing indefensible acts in the past, but those transgressions don't define it, and America will survive the destruction wreaked on it by resentful, revenge-minded agents who are unable to put the horrors of the past behind them, and will arise anew to face a better future. A limp shot at critical race theory, BLM, and progressivists' focus on the legacies of slavery, racism, and oppression in America.

The danger of course is confirmation bias, with me looking for evidence of Shapiro and co's politics and, voila!, finding it. But there is a real possibility that, like so many other westerns, this movie is a commentary on America itself. I don't think there's any special reason people ought to watch this movie, but I hope a few more do just so I can see what they think.

[swo17]

I just realized this film's title is a Mad Magazine fold-in for "Prairror" (prayer)

[domino harvey]

Perhaps if it were called Prairie on the Terror

[swo17]

I'm folding it God's way

[What A Disgrace]

I can't even pronounce this correctly in my brain; it keeps coming out as Terry on the Prairie.

[pistolwink]

It sounds like the tropes and lines in this film are basically action-movie boilerplate and the Daily Wire connection is the only thing that might make people blink twice at them.

On a side note, I once was channel-hopping on the radio during a long drive, and happened across something that resembled a gruesome parody of "conservative" talk radio, complete with a silly squeaky helium voice that sounded like a 12-year-old had downed too much Mountain Dew and mainlined the Cliff's Notes to Atlas Shrugged. Turns out it was real, and it was Ben Shapiro. Real nails-on-a-chalkboard stuff. It left me very confused—people willingly listen to this? For hours a week?