Stephen King’s Favourite Western Is Arguably One Of The Finest Motion pictures Ever Made – SlashFilm – The Imperial Wire Insider

When Stephen King shared his prime 10 films on social media in 2025, his decisions proved to be largely uncontroversial. Certainly, he had typically chosen movies which are extensively accepted by common audiences and critics alike as being stone-cold classics. King, maybe unsurprisingly, is a populist, which is a snug place for the world’s hottest horror writer to be.

For starters, his checklist included director Michael Curtiz’s 1942 wartime movie “Casablanca,” and it is onerous to argue towards that. He additionally listed the Stephen Spielberg-helmed 1975 ultra-blockbuster “Jaws” and 1977 alien contact thriller “Shut Encounters of the Third Sort,” together with director Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 crime epic sequel “The Godfather Half II,” Martin Scorsese’s uncooked 1973 drama “Imply Streets,” and William Friedkin’s 1977 thriller “Sorcerer” (which King had beforehand named his favourite film of all time). Plainly King was going to plenty of films within the Seventies. However then, this is sensible. Many people have an explosive interval of cinematic discovery in our 20s. (King was born in 1947.) Notably, nevertheless, he did not function any straight-up horror movies on his checklist.

That stated, King did title a Western that would qualify as a horror film when checked out in the precise mild — particularly, director John Huston’s 1948 sweat-fest “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” which is, once more, a fairly unassailable choose. Huston’s film was nominated for the Finest Image Oscar and gained three extra Academy Awards for Finest Director, Finest Screenplay, and Finest Supporting Actor. The movie has a Western setting, going down largely within the wilds of the Sierra Madre mountains within the mid-Nineteen Twenties, however no less than half of the film is inflected like a terrifying EC Comics story. Naturally, King digs that.

“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” for these not acquainted, stars Humphrey Bogart as Fred Dobbs, a down-on-his-luck American drifting from job to job. He winds up in Tampico, Mexico, the place his luck runs out after he is stiffed by an employer following a spate of onerous labor. He and a fellow drifter named Bob (Tim Holt) then occur to run throughout Howard (John Huston’s father, Walter Huston), an outdated prospector who has some data on mining … but additionally warns them of what occurs to a person’s soul when he out of the blue comes into wealth.

As (maybe unhealthy) luck would have it, Fred wins a small lottery sum, so he, Bob, and Howard purchase up some provides to go prospecting for gold within the Sierra Madres. Not simply any spot within the Sierra Madres, however a really faraway, distant place (one which’s miles from the place anybody might hear them scream). The journey is lengthy and arduous, and the mining course of practically destroys them, however the males amass some gold.

The guts of the image comes from its many scenes of suspicion, paranoia, and mistrust. Its three leads shortly start eyeballing one another, fearful that the opposite two will swipe their share of gold. There are a number of moments whenever you’re certain somebody goes to homicide another person. By the point “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” attracts to a detailed, there is not any doubt that a number of of its primary characters will not be respiration.

“The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” is sometimes called a Western, however once more, it isn’t some old school oater involving sheriffs and gunslingers. Reasonably, it is a horror story of sweat and desperation (to not point out, an in any other case nice work of cinema).

The sweaty foreheads, the wild eyeballs, and the rising sense of dread in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” all really feel like feelings cribbed from a “Tales from the Crypt” comedian (which really did not debut on newsstands till 1950). Actually, the film is one supernatural twist away from being a legit horror movie, which can also be its power. It is a warning; extra particularly, it is a dour examination of the corrupting energy of avarice. Audiences can sense from the phrase leap that the film will finish badly. 

In fact, Stephen King was additionally keen on EC’s horror comics from the Fifties, as evidenced by his screenwriting debut on director George A. Romero’s “Creepshow.” The 1982 movie was an anthology film, introduced as if its tales had been being learn from an EC-style comedian e-book. Recall that EC not solely put out titles like “The Vault of Horror” but additionally terrifying struggle comics like “Two-Fisted Tales” and Westerns like “Saddle Justice.” Horror, crime, struggle, and Westerns might all conceivably dovetail within the pages of EC Comics. Therefore, Romero included plenty of dramatic lighting and weird camerawork in his film to emulate the feel and appear of old-timey comics.

It is also straightforward to see a shortened, extra salacious model of “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” becoming proper into “Creepshow.” Romero might have added some type to the movie, like flashes of shade or extra dramatic music, however the plot might stay precisely the identical. As such, it is no surprise that King likes John Huston’s movie. It is a fantastic film with a fantastic horror story at its coronary heart.