Movie Review: Night of the Tommyknockers (2022)

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Night of the Tommyknockers is a horror western written by Rolfe Kanefsky, Michael Mahal, Adrian Milnes, and Sonny Mahal, and directed by Michael Su. It stars Richard Grieco as Dirk, who is the leader of the Dirk gang. They roll into a new town after robbing a bank in another town and discover that the town is plagued by demons called Tommyknockers. They were hoarding gold in a nearby mine and were really upset when some people from this town disturbed them and took it.

There aren’t a lot of horror westerns out there, and of those, there aren’t a lot of them that we have seen that we would say are good. It would be really hard to accomplish. The original Westworld is close enough to horror, so that would probably be our favorite. But in terms of indie horror, Night of the Tommyknockers is a pretty fun horror western that doesn’t take itself too seriously and manages to do a pretty decent job in a lot of ways.

The creatures that are doing the killing look like some kind of mummy/zombies, and in folklore, the Tommyknockers are believed to be the spirits of previous miners who died in the mines, which is likely what this is a take on. They did a pretty good job on the costumes for them, and the fights in general were entertaining. The acting wasn’t spectacular, but that doesn’t detract from anything, and even adds to the overall low-budget vibe of everything else. The gore and special effects were a bit cheesy, but not terrible, and we have seen much worse on much larger budgets. The story was even ok for being about some mine zombies. And they wanted their gold.

Overall, we thought Night of the Tommyknockers was an enjoyable experience. It’s one of those times where they took a stab at making something a bit different, and the result was actually an ok horror western that has a lot to offer. Bank robberies, creatures, backstabbings, bounty hunters, brothels, gunfights, hostages… There was something for everyone here. We would recommend this to fans of westerns or to those who are looking for a fun, cheesy indie horror film, and hope to see some more from this team in the future.

Night of the Tommyknockers is set to release on Friday, November 25th on VOD/Bluray/DVD. Make sure to check it out and let us know what you think! Trailer below: