Last year, we heard the awesome news that Paramount Pictures had given the greenlight to a horror Western project with the brilliant title Organ Trail (inspired by the real life Oregon Trail, a wagon route that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon back in the 1800s). The film has since made its way through production, and while we still don’t know when exactly Paramount intends to release Organ Trail, it has taken an important step toward its release: it has secured a rating from the Motion Picture Association. Organ Trail has earned an R rating for “strong violence, language and some sexual references.”
Michael Patrick Jann (Drop Dead Gorgeous) directed Organ Trail from a screenplay by Meg Turner. The story centers on a young Abigale Archer, friendless and alone in a brutal Montana winter during the 1870s, fighting for survival and to retrieve her one earthly possession, her family’s horse, from a gang of bloodthirsty bandits.
The film stars Zoé De Grand Maison (Riverdale), Olivia Applegate (Driven), Clé Bennett (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Nicholas Logan (Creepshow), Sam Trammell (Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem), Jessica Frances Dukes (Ozark), and Mather Zickel (Better Things). Zickel plays Pa Archer, “a gaunt but imposing figurehead that has a commanding energy balanced by an instinctive compassion. In the throes of a brutal Montana winter, Pa’s steadfastness and sense of purpose—along with the skills he learned as a soldier in the Civil War—are the foundation on which his family’s survival rests.”
Jann produced Organ Trail with David Codron. As Deadline informed us last year, Jann “served as an executive producer and director for the series Reno 911!, also exec producing Flight of the Conchords and Little Britain for HBO, and directing episodes of Wayne for Amazon and Daybreak for Netflix. Jann is best known on the film side for directing the cult-classic beauty mockumentary Drop Dead Gorgeous.” While he directed episodes of horror comedy shows like Daybreak, Reaper, and Ghosted, it appears that this is his first full-on horror project.
I love when the Western and horror genres get mixed together, like they were in the awesome Bone Tomahawk, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how Organ Trail has turned out.
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