Despite its duplicitous cover art, the movie tells an unusual story that held my interest.
Royce Tullis (Clint James) and his gang are in the process of hunting down the jurors that sent his brother to the gallows. As the movie opens, they approach the homestead of the last juror standing. After killing him and his wife, they kidnap his daughter, Ruth (Anna Harr). Intending to sell her to a brothel, the gang plans to move on to the next town. However, their journey takes a detour when their horses are stolen.
Forced to walk through the desert, Royce and company encounter a small town called Eminence Hill. Run by Noah (Barry Corbin,) the town isn’t the sleepy village it appears to be. In fact, its uber-religious inhabitants might be more dangerous than Royce and his band of hardened criminals.
On Royce’s trail is Quincy (Owen Conway,) who purports to be a U.S. Marshal. He hires Carson Garret (Charlie Motley,) one of Royce’s former gang members, to help find him. In exchange, Carson will be pardoned for his past crimes. Quincy has a dark past of his own, however.
Eminence Hill‘s DVD cover shows three actors: Barry Corbin, Lance Henriksen, and Dominique Swain. I enjoy Lance Henriksen’s work in pretty much everything I’ve seen him in, so I bought the movie. Now, to be honest, this is another film I found at the dollar store. My expectations weren’t high, but I thought Mr. Henriksen would be in the movie for more than a few minutes. Wrong. At least Dominique Swain and Corbin are in the movie for a commensurate amount of time to warrant being on the cover. I guess Clint James’ name wouldn’t sell the movie as well as Henriksen’s. And, well, I’m proof of that.
Written and directed by Robert Conway, who’s best known for his work on low budget horror flicks like Exit to Hell and The Covenant, Eminence Hill is a unique take on the Western. Despite its duplicitous cover art, the movie tells an unusual story that held my interest.
What lets the movie down, however, is the dialogue. For some reason, everyone speaks in a stilted, pseudo old-timey dialect that doesn’t sound natural at all. It’s so confounding that it makes it hard to follow what the characters are saying. (Even turning on the subtitles didn’t help much.) I’m not sure what prompted Conway to have his script sound this way but watching the cast trip over their words certainly didn’t help any of them performance-wise. It’s a stylistic curve-ball that seems unusual and unnecessary.
For a low-budget film, Eminence Hill looks quite good. The sets and the cinematography are appropriately rustic. After recently watching the similarly budgeted Once Upon a Time in Deadwood, Eminence Hill is an upgrade at every level in those departments.
Dialogue issues aside, this isn’t a movie that would ever be mistaken for the next Unforgiven or High Noon. The story kept me intrigued enough to keep watching even though the pacing would drag from time-to-time. Hardcore Western fans should enjoy it, but I hesitate to recommend it to everyone.
2.5 out of 5.0 stars
