Peter Berg directs an epic six-part drama about the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, in which more than 100 settlers were murdered by militant Mormons.

The 19th-century American West of American Primeval is a land of unyielding brutality, though nothing about this six-part Netflix series, premiering Jan. 9, is as violent as Peter Berg’s belligerently over-the-top direction.

American Primeval (Netflix) portrays the Old West as such a hellhole that it makes Taylor Sheridan’s rugged Westerns (Yellowstone, 1883) look like an episode of Escape to the Country. It gives us the good,