In Netflix’s new limited series, “American Primeval,” written by “The Revenant” scribe Mark. L. Smith, audiences are thrust into the viciousness of the American West, specifically the Utah Territory in 1857.

Lights" creator Peter Berg makes the wild west look like hell on Earth in "American Primeval." There's some good between all the blood.

Netflix's limited series starring Betty Gilpin and Taylor Kitsch plays out against the background of the so-called Utah War.

The series, now streaming on Netflix, depicts the brutality with which the Mormons sought to create a new world for their beliefs, the pride with which the native people held onto their ancestral lands, and the tragedy of the people just seeking to make a new home in the chaos. But is any of it true?

Netflix's upcoming Western series American Primeval is set to drop soon, so ahead of its release, we take a look at the star-studded cast.

In the catalog of the modern western, a lot of space is given to stories focused on what is assumed to have been the sheer miserableness of life on the frontier. Viscous carpets of mud. Frigid snowscapes. Scalpings. Rapes. The sibilant impact of arrows puncturing flesh.

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.

American Primeval ’s director and executive producer Peter Berg ( Friday Night Lights) knows that depicting real events isn’t without its challenges, and while much of what’s depicted on screen is dramatized,