THE WILD BUNCH FILM FESTIVAL 2026 REVIEW! In the shadows of the future, death still rides a horse in the exciting post-apocalyptic Western short Eye For An Eye, written and directed by Ashley Bowers. Dressed in a red hood, Lena (Ashley Bowers) rides through the desolation of tomorrow on horseback. The New World Order that had sprung up faced an uprising, which led to the destruction of everything. Lena and other survivors of the fall hold down an outpost that they struggle to keep alive, with everything heavily rationed. Lena discovers that a little girl, Izzy (Bella Basoco), has stolen an apple, which could get her and her mother, Ana (Laura G. Baumann), in serious trouble. When the group’s leader, Mac (Danielle Renee Vivarttas), who suffers nightmares from being raped by Cyrus (Tom Proctor), finds out about the theft, she goes berserk. Lena takes the blame and demands she be punished instead. This angers Mac, as Lena is her sister, keeping her from going full force on her…
Lena grips the reins as she rides through the wasteland in Eye For An Eye.
“Dressed in a red hood, Lena rides through the desolation of tomorrow on horseback.”
There is a lot to like about Eye For An Eye, which shows the future may just be a lot like the past if things keep slipping. One of my top films of the ’90s was Kevin Costner‘s The Postman, as I loved the vision of rebuilding a society on the graveyard that the exploding economy created. Like in that maligned classic, Bowers gives us a world that has been devastated back to horse-and-buggy technology. Anyone who thinks post-apocalypse has to be done on motorbikes and spiked killer cars should take a gander at Bowers riding a horse. The starvation factor is another great draw for audience engagement, as the frontier struggle is a lot more relatable when it is in front instead of over 100 years in the rearview.
As a short, Eye For An Eye is essentially a calling card for a full-length feature. It contains the full setup, as a lot of the first act is on display, hooking you in. The action scenes, which were directed by Proctor, are first-rate, with the exact edge you would want for fights in a movie like this. Also, Bowers in the red cloak on the horse looks awesome, with the kind of iconic power you would find on a Molly Hatchet album cover by Frank Frazetta. Eye For An Eye already looks great on its minuscule budget, so it wouldn’t take much more money to have a striking full-length feature on your hands. It is also a red-hot subject for movies right now, as audiences would love to see others in the pictures struggle as hard as they do. The feature-length version of Eye For An Eye deserves to be made, hopefully before the whole place blows sky-high.
Eye For An Eye screened at the 2026 The Wild Bunch Film Festival.
"…the kind of iconic power you would find on a Molly Hatchet album..."
