Go West

Before a group of Utah sketch comedians got hold of it, the title belonged to Buster Keaton, who used it in 1925, and to the Marx Brothers, whose 'Go West' came out in 1940. 'Go West' is the first feature from the ten comedians behind 'Studio C', the BYUtv show that started at Brigham Young University. After nine seasons they left the channel to set up their own company, JK! Studios, and the trailers pitched the result as 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' on the Oregon Trail. It sends up the pioneers' journey west and sticks to the clean comedy the troupe made its name with.

Aveline Jenkins is a widow who seems to bring doom to every man she loves. When a letter tells her that her teenage daughter is about to marry an outlaw in Oregon, she sets off from Independence, Missouri, with her sister Cora, whose relationship with dysentery, the narrator tells us, is on and off. They join a wagon train led by Captain Evander Lillianquist, a man sure they'll reach Oregon before the first frost slaughters them all.

Along for the ride is Elijah, a schoolteacher both sisters take a shine to. Close behind comes shopkeeper Robert Failure Gladstone, who shuts up shop and chases them with her henchman because they still owe her half a cent. Ahead lie quicksand, a buffalo in cowboy boots and the kind of calamity the old 'Oregon Trail' computer game loved to throw at its players.

Natalie Madsen and Mallory Everton play the sisters, Stephen Meek the teacher, Matt Meese the captain and Whitney Call the shopkeeper, and most of the cast play several parts. The script grew out of about 30 sketches the group wrote and polished together. Meek directs with Jeremy Warner, who also wrote the score and sings the theme, the Village People's "Go West". Sean Astin, Sam in 'The Lord of the Rings', is the narrator. They shot it in fifteen and a half days around Utah in the autumn of 2022.

It opened in Utah on 19 July 2023, the week of 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer', and across the US on 11 August. The handful of reviews were mostly warm, and one critic compared it to 'Airplane!', though not everyone could take all the toilet jokes. British cinemas never got it; it went to Prime Video instead.

• Western
• Comedy