Two families of settlers are snatched in the Dakota Territories, the badlands beyond civilization in the 1879 wild west - including the sweetheart of ranch hand Fergus Coffey (Karl Geary).
The blame is immediately put upon hostile Indians and a posse sets out, led by veteran Indian fighters Will Parcher (Lost's William Mapother) and John Clay (Carnivàle's Clancy Brown). For a while they team up with a group of cavalrymen, but eventually strike out of their own when they hear that a tribe called "The Burrowers" are to blame.
Only, in time, they discover to their cost, that "The Burrowers" are not a tribe of Native Americans; they're not even human.
The Burrowers, written and directed by JT Petty, is a tense and engrossing Western horror, making use of the varied terrain and the circumstances - and prejudices - of the late 19th Century to sow the seeds of confusion and mistrust within the various groups.
The critters themselves are simply part of the natural food chain, driven to hunt fresh prey after the white men killed off their traditional source of food: the buffalo.
Slick cinematography, naturalistic performances and creepy monster effects (no CGI here - all puppets, model work and rubbery costumes, but the verisimilitude is never broken), help make this a top class creature feature with the added bonus of a period setting.