Before his rise through Yellowstone and acclaimed modern westerns, Taylor Sheridan Vile horror movie quietly occupies an unusual spot in his career—a gritty torture horror film directed not out of ambition, but as a one-time favor for a friend in distress. Sheridan’s involvement in Vile (2011) happened suddenly and left him with an unexpected director credit, introducing audiences to his work long before Wind River or Sicario made him a household name.
Taylor Sheridan’s Unexpected Horror Detour
Years before he turned heads with his storytelling in Yellowstone and Wind River, Taylor Sheridan stepped into the director’s chair for Vile, an independent horror project. This wasn’t a project born of deep creative passion; Sheridan intervened mid-production to help a friend struggling to keep the film afloat. This involvement resulted in his name being attached as director, though he has always downplayed the extent of his role and investment in the outcome.
As detailed in interviews, the filmmaker considers his part in Vile incidental, describing how a crisis on set prompted him to provide guidance rather than a vision. In his own words:
“I kind of kept the ship pointed straight, and they went off and edited, and did what they did. I think it’s generous to call me the director. I think he was trying to say thank you, in some way. It was an excellent opportunity to point a camera and learn some lessons that actually benefited me on Wind River.”
—Taylor Sheridan, Director (Vile), Writer-Director (Wind River)
The story in Vile offers a gruesome ordeal: ten strangers awaken locked inside a house, unknowing participants in an experiment forcing them to endure extreme pain to extract survival-related brain chemicals. They are given only 22 hours to break free or die, a setup that borrows from earlier horror touchstones and makes for a relentlessly intense viewing experience. Vile first premiered at Film4 FrightFest, later arriving in the U.S. in 2012, though without much critical attention or acclaim.
A ‘Thank-You’ Director Credit and Tough Lessons Learned
Despite the attention from Yellowstone and other projects later in his career, Sheridan himself often dismisses Vile, acknowledging what he learned more than what he created. He has stated publicly that he neither wrote nor cast the film and had little interest in directing it, stepping in only when his friend faced a production meltdown. The result left him with a director’s credit, but not a sense of ownership or pride.
Critical response to Vile was harsh: it holds a 30% audience rating and no official critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. Viewers routinely criticized the muddled story and a confusing conclusion, although some horror fans found something to admire in its unrefined, low-budget gore. Sheridan himself referred to it as a “bad horror movie,” a label matched by the film’s underwhelming reception.
Vile stands in contrast to Sheridan’s real emergence as a filmmaker with Wind River, where he combined direction and screenwriting and found his creative purpose. That film, with its bleak landscape and careful plotting, demonstrates what Sheridan can achieve when deeply invested. Vile, by comparison, became more of a stepping stone—an accidental draft before his main act as a writer-director who would help reinvent Western storytelling.
The Unlikely Place of Vile in Sheridan’s Filmography
Vile’s story aligns with familiar tropes from the horror genre; written by Eric Beck and Rob Kowsaluk, it strands a group of strangers in an isolated house, offering only the slimmest hope for survival through mutual suffering. The premise—a desperate experiment to extract crucial chemicals as the group faces torture and a ticking clock—calls to mind popular franchises like Saw, though Vile’s execution is rougher and more chaotic, hinting at inspiration but lacking in polish.
Sheridan’s role remains both central and peripheral. Unlike Wind River, Yellowstone, or Sicario where narrative, casting, and direction are his, Vile saw him mostly as a steadying presence, with the creative influence lying elsewhere. As he has made clear, the project served as an exercise, teaching him what to avoid and preparing him for much stronger contributions to film and television later.
Interestingly, the horror community hasn’t entirely forgotten Vile. It eventually saw a Blu-ray release, a feat some direct-to-video horror titles never achieve. Sheridan’s increasing fame as a writer and director of major works likely kept Vile in some corners of pop culture discussion, even as reviews and retrospectives regularly cite it as a footnote or a misstep from a director better known for drama and crime than for splatter and suspense.
An Odd Footnote: Lasting Impact and Legacy
The presence of Vile as a debut feature for Taylor Sheridan is more historical curiosity than cinematic milestone. The film reflects a moment when he answered a friend’s call for help, gained experience, and moved on. Though the movie itself received little praise, its production gave Sheridan the hands-on lessons that would inform his later success with Wind River and his signature storytelling style in other projects.
For viewers interested in the evolution of a major contemporary storyteller, Vile remains a strange artifact—the only horror project in Sheridan’s resume, enduring more out of curiosity than love. Its rawness and flaws underscore how far he has come, while its existence serves as a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of a now-renowned creator finding his footing under unusual circumstances. Watching Vile is not essential, but for some, it’s an intriguing piece of backstory behind one of television’s most influential writer-directors.
