Dave Bautista Is a Great Actor, but He’s at His Weirdest and Bloodiest in George R.R. Martin’s Freaky Werewolf Thriller

Don’t tell Dwayne Johnson or John Cena, but Hollywood’s best wrestler-turned-actor is Dave Bautista — and it’s not even close. We all love him as Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, he’s great in a small role in Blade Runner 2049, he cleverly embodied toxic bro culture in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and he joined the ranks of morally gray Studio Ghibli antagonists by voicing the cruel-yet-noble Parakeet King in the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron. But he recently popped up in one of his weirdest and wildest movies ever, playing a monster hunter in the post-apocalyptic Western In the Lost Lands.

Based on a short story by George R.R. Martin that was originally published in 1982 (long before A Game of Thrones kicked off the still-unfinished A Song of Ice and Fire saga in 1996), In the Lost Lands was adapted into a movie by director Paul W.S. Anderson (best known for his bombastic Resident Evil movies). For all the prestige associated with Martin post-Game of Thrones, Anderson really does seem like the perfect guy to tap into the author’s sillier and more fun sensibilities on a movie like this one that’s only concerned with “it would be cool if this happened” vibes. Critics weren’t particularly enthusiastic about In the Lost Lands, but there’s always at least some fun to be had in watching Bautista and co-star Milla Jovovich (it’s not a Paul W.S. Anderson movie without his muse) getting to do their respective things.

What Is ‘In the Lost Lands’ About?

Dave Bautista holding two guns in In the Lost Lands

Set on a post-apocalyptic Earth where most of the planet is a barren wasteland and the rest is controlled by a religious cult, In the Lost Lands is about a man named Boyce (Bautista) who throws snakes at people and is apparently cursed to be unbearably attractive to every woman he meets. When the Queen of the religious cult asks a witch named Gray Alys (Jovovich) to catch a werewolf for her, she hires Boyce to take her across the country on a weird adventure. It’s like Mad Max crossed with Underworld, but that’s more flattering than the movie deserves.

Still, it calls to mind a weird era of horror-inspired action movies from the 2010s, like Priest or I, Frankenstein or Sucker Punch, where it seems like they should be based on an Xbox 360 game but aren’t. There’s some nostalgia to be found there, in a “they don’t make movies like this anymore” way (“they” being everyone but Paul W.S. Anderson, who exclusively makes movies like this, which is not necessarily a criticism), and it seems destined to be discovered on streaming services forever. Also: Dave Bautista attacks people with snakes! And there’s a scene where he shoots at a main enemy and a goon jumps in front of the bullet four or five times. A movie like that has got to be at least a little fun.