THE WILD BUNCH FILM FESTIVAL 2026 REVIEW! Deep in the woods, a funeral is swinging with the intriguing western horror short Jenkins, directed by Rachel Barrett, who wrote the film with Cassidy Kettlestrings. Shot in sepia tones, like an old Western photograph, a female outlaw (Cassidy Kettlestrings) is lost in the woods. She curses that durn Jenkins for telling her to try this path, as she never would have wandered out there on her own. In the dark forest, she finds one of the spurs of a rustler she used to ride with, who has up and disappeared. She sure is glad when she runs into Jenkins finally, but what is wrong with his face?
The outlaw finds a missing rustler’s spur at the base of a tree in Jenkins.
“She curses that durn Jenkins for telling her to try this path, as she never would have wandered out there on her own.”
With Jenkins, director Barrett does a lot of world-building in under three minutes. The monochrome visuals paired with Kettlestrings’s dusty trail wardrobe immediately transport the audience to the Old West setting. The monologue by Kettlestrings paints the picture further, opening questions about both the immediate peril and what kind of company she has been riding with. She is obviously not a tenderfoot, nor is she done up like a schoolmarm. Why this is so brilliant is by making Kettlestrings as tough a customer as she is, that sets up the horror of Jenkins to be all the worse. And all this happens in under three minutes, like those great punk bands used to do it at the end of the 70s.
What makes Jenkins all the more impressive is that it was all conceived and improvised on the spot. Trekking on out into the forest, Barrett was determined to have something to show for it, so she shot Kettlestrings as she was coming up with lines. The woods in Washington state where this was shot are pitch-perfect for both westerns and horror projects, filling the backgrounds with artistic gnarls and spiffy underbrush. What kind of monster Jenkins has devolved into is wisely left up to the imagination, which keeps you rolling over the dread in your mind. If Barrett can come up with something this good in no time at all, one shudders to think what she could do on a conventional planned movie. Jenkins does that indie magic of pulling a great story out of thin air and letting it fly, before it swoops down and tears your throat out.
"…does a lot of world building in under three minutes."
