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"Mature Content Warning!" |
Stacey Bridges is the main antagonist of the 1973 Western film High Plains Drifter.
He is a ruthless and sadistic outlaw who, along with his cousins, Dan and Cole Carlin, savagely whipped Marshall Jim Duncan to death. Bridges and his cousins then come back for revenge on the town that sold them out.
He was portrayed by the late Geoffrey Lewis.
What Makes Him Pure Evil?[]
- He and his cousins brutally tortured the Marshall Jim Duncan to death by whipping him, while cowardly townsfolk of Lago don't lift a finger to intervene and save him, with the exception of one Sarah Belding, who was stopped by her husband Lewis.
- Out of Jail after twelve months of being imprisoned, they want revenge on the townsfolk of Lago, they have nothing to eat and the brothers want to eat a horse, Bridges promises to get them one "fried or barbecued".
- They raid a camp and kill everyone there, and take their supplies for themselves, and kill a horse that had a foot injury, while continuing to depart for Lago.
- It is later revealed in the movie that they were paid by corrupt mining executive Dave Drake and his company to murder the Marshall to cover up his knowledge of an illegal gold mine on government property, which would get shut down if discovered, and that they sold out Bridges and the Carlins to stay out of trouble, and they want revenge on Lago for that.
- Later on, when Morgan Allen has his arm badly damaged, he begs them for help, and promises them the combination to a safe if they heal it up, but Bridges kills him anyway by sticking him in the throat, and cites how plenty of dynamite should be enough to open the safe. They have a brief shootout with The Stranger, where the latter shoots one of the Carlin Brothers in the ear, this was all to lure them into Lago.
- When they finally make it into Lago, they shoot up the town, and kill or injure dozens of people, with Bridges personally killing Drake by shooting him in the chest while he is in the water.
- After some time, they round up all of the remaining townsfolk for a little "party', but that is all interrupted when one of the Carlins is whipped to death by The Stranger in retaliation for Jim Duncan. After some scrambling, the other Carlin is hanged by The Stranger, and then he has a final showdown with Bridges, where Bridges asks who he is, but The Stranger kills him, Lewis Belding attempts to kill The Stranger but is shot and killed by Mordecai instead. And they finally mark Duncan's grave, and The Stranger rides off into the sunset.
- While he does scheme with the Carlin Brothers, and they are stated and one point to be his cousins, his relationship with them isn't given much depth to say whether they care about each other or not, and he sure doesn't seem sad about either of their deaths. While he does promise them horses, that is most likely just to remain on good terms with them, and so they can be more useful to him, and he seemingly took one of them being shot in the ear more as a mere annoyance than anything else.
- While he does have a semi-legitimate reason to want revenge on the townsfolk, since they sold him out after they paid him to kill Jim Duncan, but ultimately, they were still in prison in the first place for whipping him to death, which they also clearly did out of sadism, so they are not tragic in the slightest.
External Links[]
- Stacey Bridges on the Villains Wiki.
