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While I was in London at the beginning of 2004 working on the post-production of Cold&Dark, writer/producer Joanne Reay told me she already had an idea for her next project: a horror-western called “Diablo”…

At the time, no other substantial film had been made in this genre, so right off the bat I could see that it was a great idea, and without even knowing much about the story, my mind began flooding with images.

By the time a readable draft of the script was available, the title had changed to “The Wretched”. The basic story involved a rag-tag band of characters on a wagon train in the early West, who happen to stumble upon an old monastery that apparently holds gold, hidden somewhere deep in its bowels. What the greedy settlers find instead, is something beyond their worst nightmares, as they accidentally open a portal, unleashing a vicious demon from Hell.

I was very excited about the project; we all were. One of director Andrew Goth’s dreams for as long as I’ve known him, was to make a Spaghetti Western. I myself have always been a huge Spaghetti Western fan, not only the films of Sergio Leone (”A Fistful of Dollars”, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”), but also the lesser-known, raw films of such directors as Sergio Corbucci (”Navajo Joe”, “The Great Silence”), and being the huge horror fan that I am, it was a project that it would be foolish of me not to devote 110% to.

Working with the company who handled distribution on “Cold&Dark”, Joanne worked hard prepping the film for the film market sides of the Berlin Film Festival and Cannes. There were a lot of interested parties, after all the idea was pretty damned original, in a marketplace, which, at the time, was promising not much more than the last trickle of Adam Sandler movies and Brad Pitt in a loincloth.

Hello Wretch

In the spring, Goth and I sat down and worked on designs for the creature — The Wretch. I’d initially come up with some fairly standard monster designs based on the description from the script: a sleek, black creature with a smooth head that hid rows of multiple mouths.

Goth had other ideas though, not for the creature as such, but for a new incarnation that was not in the script. He reckoned that if this creature was to be an efficient killing machine, then it had to be an uncommon one. It’s easy enough for something to just hide in the shadows and just jump out at its unsuspecting prey, but what if it was able to get close enough that it just had to reach out and grab rather than lunge? The result was that when each of the settlers first encounter the creature, it would appear as a beautiful (naked) woman. Unsettling for the characters and the audience too.

I came up with some designs that went a little beyond that; Goth suggested some Māori-style tattoos, so I put markings all over her body that would represent those weaker areas of flesh that would tear during her transformation. Goth approved and we moved on.

Note: A larger article on the early concept art for “The Wretched” can be found here.

Goodbye Wretch

In the original, early drafts of the script, when The Wretch pulls out all the stops at the end, in a bloody battle with Rellik, an enigmatic stranger who swoops in to save the hapless settlers, an army of the undead is unleashed from the portals of Hell, which must be battled as well. So enticing was this section of the story, subsequent drafts belittled the role of The Wretch and strengthened the role of the undead cowboys. By this time as well, Asian superstar Chow Yun-Fat was interested in working with Goth (having seen his film, “Everybody Loves Sunshine”), and very interested in doing a Spaghetti Western, so the role was beefed-up into a starring role and the focus became Zombie-Western rather than Supernatural-Western.

As well, the opportunity arose, with Spanish co-producers, to shoot in the actual locations Sergio Leone shot his films, in Almeria, Spain. So at the beginning of 2005, Goth and I headed to Spain to look at locations and work on storyboards for the new film.

From a character-design standpoint, one of my favorite undead cowboys was the first one introduced in the story, Union Hole (pic, right). He gets, by far, the best introduction of any of the baddies and is later featured in a scene where Rellik pulls his head off, yanking most of his spine with it, and still alive, it flaps like a tail. A terrific horror image I thought. I’d based him on Kevin Howarth’s features and performance in “Cold&Dark” — whether or not he’d end up playing the character in the final film I didn’t know, but it was a good starting point.

There was just so much to work with in this latest incarnation of the project, especially with Chow Yun-Fat involved. Goth wanted to include as many references a s he could to his favorite Sergio Leone westerns and that wasn’t a problem given the locations in Spain — apart from the nagging fact that no matter where you turned there was a cell phone tower or some other kind of modern building. Clean-up in post we figured and didn’t let it dampen our spirits.

So I returned to Canada to continue my work on concept designs and storyboards, and Goth headed to L.A., and weeks later, I received a phone call that changed everything …

Continued in The Greatest Zombie Western Never Made - part 2

Related posts:

1. The Greatest Zombie Western Never Made - pt. 2
   In spring of 2005, the production of “The Wretched” made an unexpected move to Hollywood. Apparently a very interested producer...
2. Zombie Western Series Storyboards
   I enjoyed working on this series of storyboards because I could see the development of an idea over several years,...
3. “The Wretched” - Early Concepts
   Unofficial pre-production on “The Wretched” began in 2004 (see blog post, “The Greatest Zombie Western Never Made - part 1″...
4. The Wretched
   This zombie western project pre-dated “GallowWalker” by a couple of years, written by Joanne Reay, to be directed by Andrew...
5. “I Walked with a Zombie”
   Long before the time when zombies were decaying creatures gnawing at human flesh (purely a creation of George A. Romero...