Viggo Mortensen’s upcoming The Dead Don’t Hurt illustrates why Westerns AREN’T coming back.

In one word, “Deconstructs.” The apparent praise of the upcoming movie by Film Threat’s Andy Howell instead damns it.

They keep using that word. I don’t think anyone wants it.

Distributed by Shout! Studios, the same people currently keeping MST3K and Rifftrax alive on YouTube with 24/7 marathons, The Dead Don’t Hurt “-is a story of star-crossed lovers on the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s. Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps) is a fiercely independent woman who embarks on a relationship with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Viggo Mortensen). After meeting Olsen in San Francisco, she agrees to travel with him to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, Nevada, where they start a life together. The outbreak of the civil war separates them when Olsen makes a fateful decision to fight for the Union. This leaves Vivienne to fend for herself in a place controlled by corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston) and his unscrupulous business partner, powerful rancher Alfred Jeffries (Garrett Dillahunt). Alfred’s violent, wayward son Weston (Solly McLeod) aggressively pursues Vivienne, who is determined to resist his unwanted advances. When Olsen returns from the war, he and Vivienne must confront and make peace with the person each has become. Both a tragic love story and a nuanced depiction of the conflict between revenge and forgiveness, The Dead Don’t Hurt is a portrait of a passionate woman determined to stand up for herself in an unforgiving world dominated by ruthless men.” _{(Accents mine.)}

From the trailer, the film is little more than a stack of the most recent hoary cinematic cliches. Victim girl bosses, gritty shooting, evil rich white men, hicklib heroes with a slathering of heavy R rating content (save nudity. _{Even money says that, in the wake of investment and a general drive by Hollywood towards the Chinese market, it will be oddly prudish in that regard.}).

You call this “new”? I’ve been bombarded with this buffalo byproduct for three decades now.

Shout! Studios can “invite” us “to a new kind of western”, but this is the same western that’s failed to catch new fans of the genre for 20 years now.

You see, people form their media habits as… children. And if you haven’t made a family-friendly western since 2011’s Rango (Does it even count?), then you’re unlikely to cultivate that all-important new generation of fans. Older fans have enough westerns, both true and deconstructive, in their backlogs to watch. They certainly don’t need more of the deliberately demoralizing renditions we’ve seen like that awful dull and dour anthology The Ballad of Buster Skruggs.

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