Acid Western refers to the short lived sub genre of the 60s. As the name suggests it is a psychedelic slant on an icon of US culture. Think Easy Rider on horses (is Easy Rider simply an acid Western in a contemporary setting? Discuss...)
Much like cyberpunk in the 90s. The acid Western is subversive expression firmly enshrined in a time and place. The question the stands before DAY OF THE STRANGER is both how and why would it work in the current day.
After a miraculous recovery from a near death experience, bounty hunter Caine Farrowood (Dale Sheppard) must again make his way into the arid wilderness to find and retrieve a mysterious stranger (Gary Baxter) who waits there.
Thomas Lee Rutter takes up this ambitious task with the added bane of a limited budget and locations in the Midlands and Wales. Taking influence from the Mark Twain short story, Rutter subverts the western's usual outward journey through epic landscape and instead travels inwards. The eponymous Stranger acts as the Virgil to Farrowood's Dante through his own mental hellscape. In answer to the relevancy of this venture DAY OF THE STRANGER is the story of a man's nessecity of money driving him to actions that erode his sanity. That tale of greed and madness, money over health, is as relevant as it has ever been. The violence of Farrowood fills him and seemingly spills over at points during scenes with his wife (Maryam Forouhandeh). This ugliness rages and surges inside of him as the film leans into horror. The narrative is well paced and accompanied by a very cool soundtrack and together they reach a surreal crescendo which is both disorienting and visually rewarding. Props have to be given for the effort. The janky production quality deliberately invokes the spirit of the films it homages whilst keeping the personality of the low budget brit horror, like a demented cover of your favourite country song.
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