Smonk, Franklin's follow-up to 2003's Hell at the Breech, churns together elements of Southern Gothic, gunslinger Westerns and horror to convey the tale of Old Texas, a tiny, isolated Alabama town ...

James Franco is developing three movies based on novels by crime writer Tom Franklin -- "Smonk," "Poachers," and "Hell at the Breech." ...

Soon, Smonk has reduced the courthouse to splinters and dispatched dozens of souls to heaven before fleeing. The two townsmen who remain alive form a pathetic posse and give chase.