Rent Terror on the Prairie (2022)

Terror on the Prairie review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

I would review Terror on the Praire without bringing up the Gina Carano controversy if it weren’t for the fact that the very trailer stresses this as the actor’s significant return. And by big return, they mean that it’s the only work she could find after being fired from Disney. Carano was kicked off The Mandalorian and had her potential Star Wars spin-off series stricken when she refused to stop spouting transphobic and antisemitic statements on Twitter. This wasn’t a rash decision. She’d been told repeatedly by Disney and her agent to knock it off, and she refused. Skip ahead a few months, and she’s starring in Terror on the Praire, a Daily Wire exclusive movie that will only play to conservatives subscribed to that service. It would briefly appear in theaters for a grand box office total of under $900. So, yeah, this was a colossal fall from grace.

The premise of this Western isn’t even all that compelling. It’s a standard revenge Western set in the late 1800s on the Dakota Plains of Montana. Carano plays a frontier woman with an absent husband who has to pick up a gun and fight for her life when outlaws attack her home. Her children are threatened, and the woman shoots up and punches back against her aggressors. She doesn’t have many lines, but she’s at least a bit more accomplished than Cowboy Cerrone, a man who seems to have better luck riding horses than acting.

I must bring up the astonishing fact that this film cost over $70 million. Wherever that money was spent, it doesn’t feel like it’s up on the screen. So many shots have this ugly look where there isn’t much focus on the key spaces, and the few attempts to absorb the prairie environment feel poorly staged. The editing feels just as off, where it becomes hard to appreciate the grizzly violence on display when it’s all diced up. I can only assume that the filmmakers were shooting for realism by leaving so much of the filmmaking unpolished, to the point where it barely looks like there’s any color correction. So where did all this production money go? Carano couldn’t have been that expensive, given how her interviews revealed that Daily Wire was her only avenue for work. Perhaps the studio was very generous with paying their cast and crew, but it's highly doubtful given that Daily Wire took in Cinestate with their unjust treatment of employees.

It also speaks volumes that even the most devoted Daily Wire viewers haven’t been pleased with the picture. The usual crowd who would want to champion this picture for the pleasure of giving a five-star review written as “TAKE THAT, WOKE HOLLYWOOD” couldn’t bring themselves to lie this time. The film just doesn’t look good and is incredibly uneven, where it never entirely takes off with its premise and remains trapped in the purgatory of a dime-store Western film that would’ve died in a DVD bargain bin if not for the controversy associated.

Terror on the Prairie is such a nothing film that there’s more fascinating stuff going on behind the camera than anything that was shot in front of it. For example, the horse trained for the film was given the nickname Brandon, sending mixed signals about the conservative crowd who love to chant the insult Let’s Go, Brandon. The film is also more interesting for marking the fall of Carano’s career. Just look at the “red carpet” footage of her being interviewed by the Daily Wire and watch how unenthused she is when asked why she chose to work with the studio. That is not the look of a woman happy to be free and express herself on a right-leaning streaming service. That is the look of defeat.