Butcher’s Crossing Trailer Brings Madness to the Wild West

Movies

The Old West is getting a dose of crazy as Sony Pictures Entertainment has released a trailer for the upcoming Western Butcher’s Crossing. Based on the novel of the same name by (a different) John Williams, Butcher’s Crossing follows a Harvard drop-out looking for adventure who joins a buffalo-hunting expedition and gets a descent into madness for his trouble. The cast includes Nicolas Cage, Fred Hechinger, Xander Berkeley, Jeremy Bobb, Rachel Keller, and Paul Raci. Directed by Gabe Polski in his narrative debut, Butcher’s Crossing was first screened at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival – which is why it has “2022” after the title on IMDb – and will arrive in theaters on October 20, 2023, with Saban distributing it. You can see the trailer below:

The early shot of a bald Nicolas Cage in a fur coat smoking a pipe made me think of the Coen Brothers (which, in turn, made me think of how I need to watch Raising Arizona again), and the rest of the Butcher’s Crossing trailer did little to dispel that. It’s got a bit of an oddball bent to it, and I like that; it matches the idea of this hunt driving the participants insane, Cage presumably most of all. Of course, it looks just a bit like he was always crazy, and the hunt is bringing it to the forefront. I like this trailer a lot; the cinematography looks magnificent, with those beautiful shots of the snow-covered landscape and the buffalo who roam it till Cage and company shoot them for their pelts. And the image of Nicolas Cage using a straight razor to shave his head is unsettling, most of all because he doesn’t put on some psycho look – he just does it like you or I would brush our teeth. I’m glad he’s out of that financial hole he was in for a while and can make some interesting-looking films like this again. I like the look of this one.