Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter are both Clint Eastwood movies that almost fit into the Weird West category. In both movies, there aren’t any visuals that would make you think they were Weird Westerns; they’re both standard Clint Eastwood Westerns. Yet both movies subtly hint that Clint Eastwood’s character died prior to the events of the movie and he’s back as a ghost to get revenge.

So if he’s a ghost, then I’d say these would qualify as Weird West. Yet there’s nothing in either movie that explicitly says or shows him being a ghost. It’s like these movies follow the “letter of the law” as opposed to the “spirit of the law” when it comes to my definition of Weird West. That is, they may technically be Weird Westerns by definition, but they aren’t what I picture when I think of Weird Westerns. Of course, this also means these are probably the most objectively good movies out of any others mentioned on this Lemmy community.

Here’s a trailer for Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter. They aren’t streaming on any subscription service but you can rent them on most services.