Director: Charles B. Pierce
Cast: Jack Elam, Jeanette Nolan, Andrew Prine

I once read an interview with author Roald Dahl. Dahl, as you probably know, wrote a number of children's books that have become classics over the years such as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and James And The Giant Peach. But you may not know that he also wrote literature that was aimed at adults, including a lot of dark-themed short stories. Anyway, back to the subject of the interview. In the interview, Dahl was asked whether it was easier to write for children or for adults. Dahl immediately answered that it was much easier to write for adults. He basically said that child readers need to be constantly entertained in order to keep their attention and make them want to finish his stories. Adults, on the other hand, had a lot more patience, so they would be willing to leaf though unexciting text between big plot twists or occurrences of major events. Reading Dahl's opinion and reasoning, I could completely understand. Though my writing to date has been confined to movie reviews, since I was a kid, I have read countless fiction books, aimed either at children or adults, and each has its own styles. Thinking of adult fiction books, I know that more often than not they don't depend on the oft-used crutch of having illustrations, either by the author or another party. Another easier thing about writing books for adults is that you have a lot more freedom to write about topics that youths would find boring or incredibly complex. And it goes without saying that when you are writing for adults, you can also write about extremities that you couldn't get away with a book aimed at children, such as peppering the text with foul language, extreme violence, and various sexual incidents.

While I think that overall it's easier to write for an adult audience than an audience made up of children, I do think that there are a few aspects of youth literature that offer more flexibility than written words for the mature and seasoned. For example, children often crave repetition; it has been proven that getting the repetition they crave can actually help in their development. So you can sometimes recycle the same ideas for children instead of being always forced to think of new ideas. Another advantage is that with kids really wanting assurance that everything will work out in the end, you have more freedom to shoehorn in a happy ending to the narrative, while an adult might think the same technique is extremely forced. But that is not to say that you never can take the child reader down a dark path. Dahl once revealed certain rules that he placed on his literature for children, and they included the following: "Keep a wicked sense of humor", "Adults can be scary", "Revenge is sweet", and "Bad things happen". I'm sure upon hearing those philosophies that some adults were at first disturbed. But look at how successful Dahl was with writing books with those dark elements, both critically and commercially. While there are certainly some elements that kids shouldn't be reading at their young age, at the same time, kids are not stupid. They know that life is not always fair, and while they may desire to see protagonists win out in the end, they probably wouldn't welcome a narrative that is so unbelievably positive for its protagonists that they couldn't relate to it at all.

I think that the same ideas Dahl had towards his books can also be directed at movies that are aimed for family audiences, or just a children's audience. On the silver screen, kids want to not only see children (or adults for that matter) succeed, but along the way have some connection to the tone of the movie's characters or story. If enough care is given to these aspects of the movie, then I think that more darker elements and topics than you may think can be included in a movie for families or children. For this review, I want to talk about a subject matter than you probably don't associate with movies that children would watch - vigilantism. Sure, you have no doubt seen plenty of movies where adult characters practice this action, but how many movies have you see when a child is out for bloody revenge? Believe it or not, that is the idea behind the movie I am reviewing here, The Winds Of Autumn. The idea of the movie sounded so offbeat I had to see it, especially since I also wanted to see if the filmmakers approached the subject matter in a palatable manner. The events of the movie take place in the American Midwest in the year 1884. An eleven-year-old Quaker boy named Joel Rigney (Chuck Pierce Jr., the real life son of the director) lives with his mother, father, and sister in the countryside. One day, the Hankins clan, a group of shifty adult individuals lead by a fellow named J. Pete Hankins (Jack Elam, The Norseman) ride in, and ask the Rigney family for help since one of them has been wounded. Of course, the Hankins don't mention that their injured family member got wounded during the family's scheme of freeing one of them from a chain gang, so it should come as no surprise that they end up killing the entire Rigney family except for Joel before riding away. The other residents of the area feel Joel should just accept things and allow himself to be taken in by neighbor Mr. Pepperdine (Earl E. Smith, also the movie's screenwriter). But the young Joel feels that the "eye for an eye" part of the Bible is apt for this situation. Joel secretly gets his hands on some firearms owned by Pepperdine, and undetected at first heads out into the wilderness with the intention of killing all of the Hankins. Pepperdine, who as it turns out has been hiding a past of being a gunfighter, starts pursuing Joel upon discovering of his disappearance, fearing Joel is in way over his head.

The director of The Winds Of Autumn, Charles B. Pierce, managed in his career despite his independent and low budget filmmaker status to make some movies that are still fairly well known and beloved today, such as The Town That Dreaded Sundown and The Legend Of Boggy Creek. Though he also had his share of stumbles that were quickly forgotten, as my review of The Norseman showed, and The Winds Of Autumn (released by the famous southern drive-in movie distributor Howco) can be added to that list. But first I will list what Pierce manages to get right. Aided by cinematographer James W. Roberson (The Town That Dreaded Sundown), Pierce manages to make most of the movie look pretty nice, with beautiful backdrops of the Montana countryside. You can feel the autumn chill in the air too, adding authenticity. Sometimes the movie isn't just eye-catching or shivering-inducing, there is also a haunting feeling akin to what you may have felt by being in the middle of nowhere far from anything resembling protective civilization, such as in the opening of the movie where Joel hides in fear from the approaching Hankins clan. The man-made production values feel a bit inconsistent, but that's small potatoes compared to Pierce's other stumbles in the director's chair. One problem Pierce has is that he usually doesn't give much bite to scenes that really need it. Somebody is wounded? It almost seems a matter of fact to the person's companions. Death? Again, it comes off almost like a shrug. It's quite possible that Pierce, especially when considering that his young son was in a prominent role in the movie, was afraid of things getting too dark. He might have also been thinking of wanting to make the movie palatable for family audiences to increase the box office potential. But the end results often feel just too weak in execution to be convincing to adults who watch the movie.

On the other hand, there are also some elements in the movie that adults might not want their children to see. There's an attempted rape that ends with the unfortunate (teenage) woman getting her brains bashed in, a rattlesnake is blown into hundreds of bloody bits, and there is also an extended sequence in a whorehouse that just does about everything except show nudity or utter out loud what kind of place it is. Of course, there is also the whole issue of an eleven-year-old boy setting off to enact bloody justice on the people that killed his family. While it's possible the depiction of this could be handled in an engaging yet tasteful manner not traumatizing for kids, the movie seems too afraid to deal with it. Believe it or not, the morality or consequences of the idea of a child vigilante is not dealt with in any manner at all. Instead, we have to wait for the longest time for the character of Joel to even begin crossing off names on his list, and once he does, we don't get any idea of what he's feeling after every attempt. Nor does anything surrounding him seem to have a feeling about it as well, so it should come as no surprise that at the (very rushed) climax, things are completely taken out of Joel's hands. I feel I should add that things are made worse by how the story unfolds before that speedy climax plays out. It takes over a third of the movie before Joel starts his quest for vengeance, and instead of the movie regularly cutting back and forth between the pursuing Joel and the fleeing Hankins clan, the narrative instead choses to focus on either Joel or the Hankins for an impossibly long time before cutting back to the other party. Making things even worse is how clear that in every long jump back to either party, there is really nothing of consequence happening for the characters. For example, there is a really long sequence when the Hankins clan, taking a rest from their travels, decide to hold up the aforementioned whorehouse. When this subplot finally manages to come to a conclusion, it instantly becomes clear that it was just pure padding and nothing else.

I probably wouldn't have minded too much this and the other moments of lack of plot had these scenes given some insight into the characters, both good and bad. But the unfortunate fact is that not only do we learn next to nothing about the characters, the majority of the cast - no doubt despondent about having little to work with - give pretty poor performances. The young Joel actually has very little dialogue despite the fact that he is the central figure the movie's events (not really plot turns) surround. We learn almost nothing about him before his family is killed, we don't know why he's so gung-ho for bloody revenge, and we can't figure out where he's headed as the closing credits roll. And while I have seen far worse child actors, I have to say that Chuck Pierce Jr. for the most part doesn't give any life or emotion to his (limited) words and actions. Also, what is Pepperdine's connection to Joel and his family before Joel's family is killed? Why does he want to take care of Joel? How and why did he retire his gunfighting gift years ago? Questions like those aren't answered at all. As for the various members of the Hawkins clan, they only stand out for two reasons: One being that the attempted rapist of the teenage girl is played by the movie's director Charles B. Pierce (make of that what you will), and that one of them is an elderly woman (Jeanette Nolan, Cloak & Dagger). That's it - no explanation as to why they are bad or what motivates them. (If you are wondering about the character played by Jack Elam, he gets extremely little to do despite his billing.) The only actor to truly bring life into The Winds Of Autumn is the ever reliable Dub Taylor (The Great Smokey Roadblock), who as a passing merchant performs his familiar schtick with his trademark gusto. Though Taylor could easily do what he was known for in his sleep, and judging by the movie's weak script and direction, probably did so here. After all I have said about The Winds Of Autumn, it should probably come as no surprise that it never received a VHS release, and it was only (and very quietly) given a DVD release in North America in 2022. If you ask me, it would probably have been for the best had the distributor just left it alone and had it be swept away with the (autumn) wind. If that joke isn't sufficient enough for the end of this review, I will add that I'm sure at the time of its original release, The Winds Of Autumn put the "ow" in Howco.

(Posted July 11, 2026)