Skip to main content
  • Online media
  • Tariffs
  • Epstein
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • RSS
  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate

Media Matters for America

  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives

Media Matters for America

  • Nav
  • Search
  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives
  • Online media
  • Tariffs
  • Epstein
  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • RSS

The Daily Wire's mediocrity on the prairie

The new film from the right-wing website is a childish Western fantasy that isn't worth watching or getting particularly angry about

Written by John Knefel

Published 06/16/22 10:07 AM EDT

Terror on the Prairie, a new piece of extended video content from right-wing website The Daily Wire, is little more than a feature-length adaptation of the fantasy scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie fends off bandits using only his trusty BB gun. The script would be adequate as a first draft in a college screenwriting course, in that there are no glaring, embarrassing flaws. Instead, the plot trots along like a horse through mud, mistaking slack for thoughtfulness and telegraphing for foreshadowing.

As direct-to-video movies go, it’s probably not bad enough to become a cult classic and is more likely to be ignored than mocked. Anyone who has ever seen a poorly executed play can attest that the worst thing an actor or director can hear after curtain call is “the set was beautiful.” Along those lines, I’d like to say the location scout for Terror was phenomenal.

The movie stars former mixed martial artist Gina Carano, whose acting skills have noticeably atrophied, and UFC fighter Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, who gives a surprisingly passable performance. The whole point of the movie is to give Carano a platform after she was fired from the Star Wars miniseries The Mandalorian for making antisemitic remarks on social media following earlier transphobic comments she had posted. The marketing is about as subtle as the movie itself: “Gina Carano is back. Disney canceled her. Now, the un-canceling begins.”

The storyline in Terror is simple. Carano’s character, Hattie, who comes from a wealthy St. Louis family, has headed west with her husband Jeb, played by Cerrone, to homestead. By the film’s opening, she has come to regret the decision, but Jeb insists they stay. “Just got to have a little grit,” he tells her. “Deep down, you’re the toughest woman in this territory.”

Characterization beyond that is minimal yet heavy-handed. In an early scene, a band of Native Americans show up with a wounded member of their tribe, and Hattie stitches her up. She’s a good person, you see. We don’t hear from any indigenous people for the rest of the film, although Hattie uses the gift the tribe gives her — a knife — to kill an attacker in the final act.

While Jeb goes to town to get supplies and look for work, a gang of bandits — we learn later that they’re former Confederate soldiers led by a character called Captain Miller — show up to menace Hattie and her children. What follows is an extended stand-off that takes up most of the rest of the movie. Hattie manages to prevent them from storming her house — she’s standing her ground, you see — only to realize later that she and her children are bait. Jeb is the real target. What? Yeah.

It turns out Jeb and Miller have a history. Jeb was a former Confederate soldier at the outset of the Civil War, but eventually defected to the Union by its end. “Things weren’t simple back then,” Hattie tells her son of his father’s decision to initially fight a war on the side of enslavers. At one point during the war, Jeb tried to murder Miller but ended up accidentally killing his daughter. Miller is now out for revenge, and this personal backstory — more than that fact that he was a high-ranking Confederate officer who fought to maintain a society based on racist chattel slavery — serves to explain his character defects.

After getting nice and liquored up in town, Jeb sees a wanted poster with Miller’s face on it and hurries home, which brings us to the movie’s final act. When Jeb returns to the farm, he finds Hattie has been taken captive by the gang, and he surrenders to them under the promise that they’ll let her go. They do not. In a needlessly gratuitous scene of sexual violence, Hattie uses the knife she was gifted to kill one of the bandits as he tries to rape her. She frees Jeb, and together they kill Miller and his remaining foot soldier.

We close with a wide shot of other settlers rebuilding Hattie and Jeb’s burned-down shack. It's a happy ending, if you find settler colonialism and the slow-moving genocide of indigenous peoples heartwarming.

Unlike other movies from the Daily Wire — like the new anti-trans What Is a Woman? — Terror doesn’t explicitly mine reactionary bigotry to court controversy and attention from the press, with the notable exception of highlighting Carano’s “un-canceling.” Instead, it seems designed to attract a wider audience interested in Americana genre films and use that as an entry point into the site’s far-right politics. For now, Terror is siloed off and seems destined for a short shelf life in the attention economy. But it would be a mistake to ignore what the Daily Wire is trying to do, even if it is poorly executed.

The Latest

  1. On MSNBC's Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone points out that “there is no single center of gravity in the larger MAGA media”

    Video & Audio 07/18/25 5:52 PM EDT

  2. MSNBC and CNN out the Trump administration for fueling weather manipulation conspiracy theories

    Article 07/18/25 3:09 PM EDT

  3. Fox anchor Shannon Bream responds to possible release of Epstein grand jury testimony: “That's just going to be a sliver of what's available when it comes to Epstein evidence”

    Video & Audio 07/18/25 3:08 PM EDT

  4. Charlie Kirk: “I have several handwritten notes from President Trump. He's not a doodler.”

    Video & Audio 07/18/25 3:00 PM EDT

  5. Right-leaning podcasters are turning on Trump over Jeffrey Epstein

    Research/Study 07/18/25 1:42 PM EDT

Pagination

  • Current page 1
  • …
  • Next page ››

In This Article

  • The Daily Wire

    daily wire_mmfatag
  • Antisemitism

Related

  1. Matt Walsh: “Trump is at this point just flat out insulting and belittling his supporters who disagree with him on” Epstein

    Video & Audio 07/17/25 2:22 PM EDT

  2. Media Matters weekly newsletter, July 18

    Narrative/Timeline 07/18/25 10:44 AM EDT

  3. Daily Wire host: Charlie Kirk is “effectively running the Republican Party”

    Video & Audio 07/17/25 10:35 AM EDT

Media Matters for America

Sign up for email updates
  • About
  • Contact
  • Corrections
  • Submissions
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • RSS

© 2025 Media Matters for America

RSS