The Birth of the Acid Western…So, I’ve jumped on board to help get this thing made, and you can too! If you’re interested, you can read all about it below — or visit the film’s website for even more info. Also, you might find some swag you’re interested in…every bit helps get the film over the line! It’s a distinctly New Mexican chapter of a familiar ripple in American Filmmaking. Check it out!


How an unexpected archive revealed a lost chapter of film history.

In late 2018, I had recently completed my Ph.D. in Literature, Theory, and Cultural Studies, and was teaching a course called Film as Art in the English Department at New Mexico State University — the same course Orville Wanzer had taught 60 years before me.

As a scholar working across film, literature, and gender studies, I’ve always been drawn to the unconventional — to the places where art pushes against the grain of tradition. Wanzer’s work embodied that same resistance: a refusal to fit neatly into categories, a reaching beyond the boundaries of genre and convention. In his archive, I recognized a story that wasn’t just historically significant but also personally urgent.

The Archive

144 reels, countless stories — a living history of the Southwest on film.

Over the past six years, I’ve worked to digitize nearly all of the 111 reels of 16mm films in Wanzer’s archive. What I uncovered was more than just Wanzer’s legendary The Devil’s Mistress (1965) — often considered one of the earliest examples of an “Acid Western.” The reels revealed fragments of his unfinished projects, outs from The Devil’s Mistress, student films spanning over two decades, and glimpses into the independent filmmaking spirit that was alive in the Southwest long before Hollywood took notice or film schools took root in New Mexico.

Wanzer’s archive is not just a time capsule — it’s a living history of the region’s first film school, which he launched at NMSU in 1966. For twenty years, he nurtured students who experimented with film outside the mainstream, leaving behind an untold story of cultural rebellion, desert landscapes, and visionary art.

The Legacy

When the Western collided with counterculture, a new vision was born.

What began as an academic curiosity has grown into a full-scale documentary project: Birth of the Acid Western. The film explores the legacy of Wanzer and the strange, visionary subgenre he tapped into — a genre where the Western myth collides with countercultural visions, surreal storytelling, and the spirit of rebellion.

• Rare Archival Footage – Films digitized for the first time from Wanzer’s collection.

• Interviews and Testimonies – Scholars, artists, and those who knew Wanzer help piece together his legacy.

• Cinematic Storytelling – The landscapes of the Southwest become a backdrop for a story about death, failure, loss, and what Wanzer descibed as, “the strange influence that some people have over others.”

This isn’t just a film about the past — it’s about how forgotten archives can reframe our understanding of art, history, and the American frontier.