West of Hell attempts to be a thoughtful horror film about complex characters wrestling with their moral failings. Instead, it's very funny.
The movie is edited so that some scenes don't logically follow from the preceding ones. Don't worry, this won't matter when the film hits its stride. The story is barely functional anyway, and that's where you'll get most of your enjoyment. If you don't find it hilarious that a movie is accidentally about a couple of unscrupulous cowboys entering and exiting train cars when it is sometimes unclear that they weren't already in the same cabin, this one probably isn't for you. I thought it was a hoot.
There also seems to have been a last-minute rush to cram in a bunch of filler. I can't account for why some scenes go on so long with nothing happening (a sequence where the token priest character wanders around silently comes to mind) without presuming they were simply out of time and resources and needed to bump the film up to 80 minutes.
The performances are terrible, ranging from wooden to cartoonish but inconsistently enough so that the film never sets a tone. And the premise seems to change twice, but I didn't think it mattered because the film doesn't nail down any version of itself even for a single scene.
Personally, I thought it was worthwhile and I laughed the whole way through. I've given this one the so-bad-it's-good stamp and 80 minutes is a good length for this. But don't go in expecting anything to work (or even make sense). Plot: 2
Characters: 0
Themes: 1 Spectacle: 4
Overall score: a masterpiece compared to the other film I watched this weekend. See better reviews at: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/west_of_hell_2018
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