Pale Rider is a 1985 American western film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood, who also stars in the lead role. This movie has plot similarities to the classic Western Shane (1953), including in its final scene, as well as previous Eastwood films featuring his Man with No Name character and his 1973 western High Plains Drifter. The title is a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as the rider of a pale horse is Death. The film also featured Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Christopher Penn, Richard Dysart, and Richard Kiel.
The film opens near the fictional town of Lahood, California, in the 1880s (based on remarks in the film about outlawing hydraulic mining), where a group of struggling miners and their families are panning for gold. However, thugs sent by rival big-time miner Coy Lahood arrive and shoot up the camp, destroying tents and huts as well. Megan Wheeler, a 14-year old girl there, is horrified when the thugs shoot her dog. The thugs leave the camp torn up and nearly destroyed. Megan buries her dog out in the woods, and prays to God for help. After she prays, we see a stranger heading to the town on horseback.
Plot
A gold mining camp in the California foothills is besieged by a neighboring landowner intent on stealing their claims. A preacher rides into camp and uses all of his powers of persuasion to convince the landowner to give up his attacks on the miners.
Keywords: 15-year-old, 1880s, 19th-century, action-hero, anti-hero, attempted-rape, bank, beating, bible, bible-verse
Hell comes home
... and hell followed with him.
The Preacher: Nothing like a good piece of hickory.
Coy LaHood: Sacramento ain't worth moose piss.
Coy LaHood: Do you imbibe?::The Preacher: Only after nine in the morning.
[last lines]::Megan Wheeler: [her voice echoing through the mountains] Preacher? Preacher? We all love you Preacher... I love you!... Thank you! Good-bye!
The Preacher: Well, if you're waitin' for a woman to make up her mind, you may have a a long wait.
The Preacher: Meantime, why don't you put me to work?::Hull Barret: Oh no, I couldn't ask you to, uh... Well, I mean, ya know - maybe if there was somethin' spiritual.::The Preacher: Well, that Spirit ain't worth spit without a little exercise. Now you tell me where.
[Preacher has just hit Club in the groin with a sledgehammer - Josh LaHood looks at Club when he gets back up on his horse and they start to ride away]::Josh LaHood: You think you can make it?::Club: Ice!... Ice!
Teddy Conway: Where are you going Mr Hull?::Hull Barret: I'm going into town::Teddy Conway: Ain't that kinda dumb after what happened last time?
Eddie Conway: It was him. Him and his men. They shot him. Forever. The bullets kept hitting him. Forever.
Sarah Wheeler: Who are you? Who are you... really?::The Preacher: Well, it really doesn't matter, does it?
From outer space he came to this world
To conquer and rule - nothing is safe
To suck it out like a spider a fly
By his mental strength he controls
The mankind and gave religion
But their gods are so far away
[Bridge:]
It doesn't matter how many will die
It doesn't matter how many will cry
[Ref:]
He is the Pale - Pale rider
The bringer of death, suffer and pain
Pale - Pale rider
The lord of destruction is his name
Behind the clouds their lives a tribe
In a cold world where all life will die
They wait for - for the helping hands
All treasure he found here on this earth
And at other planets he robbed too
In thousands of years of his endless pain
I am the Pale rider searching for superiority
The world where I live is like hell so dark
All hate around me I can understand
No I don't know where to go
No I don't know how to show
I just don't know it
I have made my final journey
I have made my peace for my own death
Tonight I'm all right through it
If you meet me at the war tonight
I'll show you I'll have death by my side
Golden dawn shall come upon you all
Come taste the venom it'll bleed from my eyes
One of us shall surely die tonight
I don't care, no I just don't care
Either way I die tonight
So I don't care