Linda And Abilene (1969)

Herschell Gordon Lewis has delved into so many different genres. Of course he is most famous for his early gore films like Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs but he has dipped his feet into just about every exploitation sub genre known to man. He did nudist camp films like Natures Playmates. Sexploitation trash like The Alley Tramp. Hillbilly horrors like This Stuff'll Kill Ya. Biker films like She Devils On Wheels. Juvenile delinquent stuff like Just For The Hell Of It. I can go on and on but I'm sure you get the point. With this one he offers up a sexploitation flick in the form of a western.

This one starts off a bit slow and it takes quite a while before we even have any dialogue but eventually it gets into the warped tale of a incest, lesbianism and murder.

A brother and sister attend their parents funeral and are left to tend to the farm and house on their own and I'm sure their parents wouldn't be proud of them when the siblings start spying on each other in various states of undress. Both of them lust after the other and they have sleepless nights of a masturbation with dirty incestuous thoughts. Eventually they give in to their desires and its not long before they are humping all over the house, farm and creek. Things turn sour when big brother takes off to the nearest town for a night of liquor and ladies. A dude at the bar named "Rawhide" over hears a conversation between big brother and a local hooker about how he left little sister home all alone. Naturally Rawhide heads over to the farm-house where he will indulge in a night of rape.

When big brother comes home to the aftermath of his beloved sisters rape he promptly decides to kill Rawhide. So I guess it is also a rape/revenge flick too. The whole revenge thing comes off rather rushed and it all comes to an anticlimactic and abrupt ending.

The main problem with this flick aside from its boring beginning is that there just isn't enough naked flesh in it. There are only two girls in the entire movie and after a while we get tired of seeing the naked frolic scenes. However there are some truly awesomely awkward moments in here like the churning butter montage. We watch bro and sis join hands and jerk-off a barrel of butter. Who thinks this stuff up?

Linda And Abilene was thought to be long lost but lucky for all us Herschell Gordon Lewis fanatics it was recently found. Not the best movie in the world but fans of Lewis are used to that sort of thing. Check it out for fun with lesbians, incest, rape/revenge and of course butter churning.

 

Rawhide Terror (1934)

Written and produced by Victor Adamson, the father of the great schlock-meister Al Adamson (Satan's Sadists, Girls For Rent). I think it is safe to say like father, like son. This has to be one of the most cheesy, wackiest, weirdest westerns I have ever seen.

  A bunch of dirt-bags pose as wild Indians and terrorize a family of four who are having a nice picnic. They rob the father of his gold and then brutally murder him execution style. The mother is next to go. For some reason they let the two children survive. One of them runs off into the woods while insanely laughing to himself and the youngest boy of the two is left behind with his dead parents. Now we jump forward in time a good 12 years or so and the criminals are being killed one by one. The man doing the killings is a masked phantom type known only as the Rawhide killer. The whole community is hot on the trail of the masked villain but he always seems to be one step ahead and gets away every time.

 The Rawhide Terror is packed to the gills with flaws. The acting is ridiculous, the action is not very eventful and the audio has certainly seen better days, there are still some things that make this one worth a watch. First off the Rawhide Killer is outright absurd. With his giant over-bite and silly attire, you can't really help but like this guy. Then there is the fact that we are indeed watching a western but the killer chooses to strangle his victims rather then shoot them. Aside from that there isn't a whole lot more going on in this one but what can you expect from what was supposed to be an old time serial. What we are actually seeing today is a pieced together hour or so long feature version of the serial.

Probably only worth a watch for lovers of truly bad cinema and of course Al Adamson fanatics but then again I would assume they would be one in the same.

 

Jesse James Meets Frankensteins Daughter (1966)

Directed by one of exploitation cinemas forefathers, William Beaudine (Mom And Dad, Bela Lugosi Meets The Brooklyn Gorilla) and designed to be double billed with Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula which David Carradine once stated is the worst movie he ever made. What we end up with is one of the weirdest westerns ever made.

As you might have guessed Jesse James Meets Frankensteins Daughter blends the western genre with the classic Universal Studio's Frankenstein and right off the bat this movie lies to us because it isn't Henry Frankensteins daughter that meets Jesse James but it is actually his granddaughter. Either way I love any exploitation title where a character is a straight descendant of Henry Frankenstein. It just makes me chuckle. Remember I Was A Teenage Frankenstein? The mad scientist in that one is also in the Frankenstein family. What I want to know is, who pissed in the Frankenstein gene pool? This family has produced generations of mad scientists. Anyway Henry Frankensteins granddaughter leaves Europe and settles in America along with her brother Rudolph Frankenstein who for some reason has a very hard time faking a German accent. Actually he has a Spanish accent and appears to have a golden brown skin tone unlike his sister Maria Frankenstein. Wait... Isn't Maria a Spanish name? This movie is all mixed up right from the beginning.

Anyway the Frankenstein's are in America because there are more electrical storms. For some reason I am not buying this either. Again they are trying to bring the life back to dead and all of the local townsfolk have left the area because they are not the scientific type as you would have guessed. Well Jesse James and his big ogreish retarded friend Hank were just caught up in a robbery gone wrong and Hank catches a bullet in the arm which is all acted out pretty horribly. It just so happens that the nearest doctors are the Frankenstein's but before Jesse James can say draw his retarded friend is turned into a walking mongoloid corpse. Maria Frankenstein uses Hank the retarded monster to do her evil bidding and this basically consists of strangling everyone in town. The monster kills a local cop, a doctor and strangles just about everyone who comes into sight. All of course on Maria's orders.

Unlike the real Frankenstein, Hank doesn't have bolts coming out of his neck. Instead he has a shaved head with a big stupid scar that wraps around his cranium. Also the corpses are not lifted up above a castle for reanimation. Instead Maria Frankenstein puts them in this really stupid looking crash helmet with two giant electro's coming from the top of it. The helmet is painted red, yellow and green and it is the silliest looking contraption I have ever seen. For the helmet alone Jesse James Meets Frankensteins Daughter is worth a watch. Still I have to admit, this one is not for everybody. Only lovers of bad cinema can respect the insanity that this one has in offer.

Of course the film could have been much better then it really is. Here are some of the flaws. It is way to talky, it is way to clean, and when I say clean I mean there is not really much blood to speak of and there is no naked female flesh on display. Its filled with plot holes and offers up some of the worst character development of all time. However I still do enjoy this film. I like Hank the giant retard, I like the bad acting and more then anything I love the stupid fucking helmet. Check this one out if you are in the mood for some ridiculous antics with cowboys and monsters. Oh and it is way better then Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula. That one can really be skipped all together.

Shanghai Joe (1973)

Ever wonder what it would be like if Bruce Lee came to America to fight Clint Eastwood in a Western movie? Of course not because it is a ridiculous idea. Ridiculous is the key with Shanghai Joe and while this film might not offer up the martial arts experience of Enter The Dragon or the stylish showdowns of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly it has enough camp value and off the wall mayhem to make for a very memorable cult film.

Shanghai Joe is a Kung Fu master who's greatest life ambition is to come to America and become a cowboy. I'm not one to piss on someone elses dreams but this seems like an awful idea and when Joe arrives in Texas it proves to be an awful idea.

As you would think the old west was probably not the most tolerant of places and times and when this Asian man shows up he is called just about every name in the book. Shanghai Joe is filled to its brim with racial slurs and various other forms of politically incorrect debauchery.

Basically what Joe learns upon his arrival is that Americans have no honor, no respect for others, no respect for human life. They cheat, steal and will find any way possible to stick a man from behind and try to fuck them over. Shanghai Joe does what he has to in order to survive and luckily for us this means being a bad-ass Kung Fu-ing son of a bitch. Shanghai Joe fights his way across Texas and along his way he will fight a cannibal, Klaus Kinski, a bull and various other gun-slinging tough guy types. As if Shanghai Joe doesn't already sound amazing, this one comes complete with lots of gore. We get the expected gun shot wounds but this one also offers up some eyeball gore, severed arms, a man is impaled on spikes, torsos are split open with bare fists and we even have some self surgery going on.

With all these insane shenanigans it is hard to even pick the most memorable scene. I would say its a toss up between the final showdown or the ridiculous fight between Shanghai Joe and a giant bull. Joe takes the giant bull out with a flying jump-kick to the achy-breaky skull. Watch this scene without laughing, I dare ya!

Shanghai Joe has to be one of the most insane Spaghetti Westerns in cinematic history. Gore galore, shoot-em-up chaos, martial arts and some very very bad acting.

If you are in the mood for a strange fistful of pasta check this one out! There is also a sequel to this which I am yet to see called The Return Of Shanghai Joe.

Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid (1973)

All over the Internet I have read reviews from moronic ass-hats who like to bad mouth this movie. Apparently there is a heavily cut version of this movie which runs around 90 minutes and it just doesn't make any sense. The full 122 minute version on the other hand is brilliant and is one of the coolest westerns ever made.

Directed by the genius Sam (The Wild Bunch) Peckinpah (Straw Dogs, Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia), Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid is a stylish film on the classic tale of Billy The Kid and his old pal Pat Garrett. For those of you who came from under a rock and are not familiar with the story, Billy The Kid and Pat Garrett were two outlaws in the old west. The ran together and committed all kinds of terrible crimes together. They eventually parted ways and became sworn enemies until Pat Garrett finally put a bullet into Billy The Kid. A legend was killed and another was born. Hence the basis for Sam Peckinpah's film. Not only does the movie follow two of America's most infamous icons but it also portrays the dieing west in a way that I have never seen in any other film.

Even though Billy The Kid is a ruthless killer, the film portrays him as a man of principle who represents freedom. Billy refuses to except the new way. "You want to put a fence around my country?" He will fight the law and the establishment and is willing to be called an outlaw in order to keep his idea of freedom. Pat Garrett on the other hand has sold out to the man and was picked as the new sheriff in town. It just so happens that his first big job is to catch or kill Billy The Kid but if anybody knows Billy the way that Garrett knows Billy they would know that you can't take the kid alive. From here on it is a game of cat and mouse. Many get shot and killed during the game but the final showdown is between the two men who's name ate up the title.

Although the runtime may be a bit long on this one it never seems to get dull or boring. Metaphorically and literally Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid has much to gawk at. Sam Peckinpah also brings back some of that religious commentary that we all know and love so much from The Wild Bunch and in many senses also touches on that nihilistic tone of anarchy that made the previous film so famous. In my favorite scene Billy The Kid shoots a crazed Christian full of holes with a shotgun that was "Loaded with $1.60 in dimes". After he fills the religious psycho with American currency he tells the limp victim to keep the change. It is moments like this that make Sam Peckinpah a god amongst other directors. There is also some naked women on display, a orgy, lots of bloody shoot-em-up scenes, plenty of whisky drinking rough-necks, a very unique cast which includes Bob Dylan as Alias and some amazing quotes "You want a woman? I got one named Bertha. 'got a ass on her like a forty dollar cow 'n' a tit - I'd like to see that thing filled full o' tequila."

This one is more for lovers of spaghetti westerns. Its a bit to stylish and violent for the old timers who still dig John Wayne.

The Legend Of Nigger Charley (1972)

Like the saying goes "They just don't make them like they used to". Then you might get some asshole youngster who wants to argue the fact because they like the way c.g.i. looked on the last fucking Transformers movie or something. Well, all I have to say to them is nobody making dangerous movies anymore but they would never even dare an attempt at an exploitation title like The Legend Of Nigger Charley.

Perhaps the foreign poster is less offensive and safer to put on my blog. Well its a damn shame because The Legend Of Nigger Charley is a great piece of exploitative history. This one brings the Blaxploitation genre into the western territory. Of course it would spawn a sequel called The Soul Of Nigger Charlie but would also be a big influence for future film Boss Nigger which also stars Fred (The Hammer) Williamson and that bad D'Urville Martin that we all know and love as Willie Green from Dolemite.

In this one Fred Williamson plays Nigger Charley, a black slave in the old west. Charley's master is on his death bed and as a last act of kindness he sets Charley free but things can't be that easy for our gun-slinging soul brother. The man who is taking over the estate wants Charley for a whipping boy but he bites off more then he can handle when he tries to stop Charley. Charley beats that honky to death and it wont be long before the law is after him. Not even a freed slave has the right to kill a white man. Not in this movie anyway.

So Charley takes bad D'Urville Martin and another friend named Joshua with him and they shoot their way across the desert. When they hit an exceptionally racist town, they decide to "Warn the west. Nigger Charley ain't runnin no more". They kill anybody who tries to keep them from their freedom and its not long before the three outlaws are growing in numbers. African Americans are eager to join up with the bad-ass crew and fight for the love of brotha. Of course Mr. Williamson is the hero and of course he gets all the bitches, even half white ones. We get some really cheesy shoot-em-up scenes and a whole lot of racial slurs thrown into the mix and what it all comes down to is that ain't nobody ever gonna own this nigga again.

Personally preferring this earlier film over Boss Nigger, I would recommend The Legend Of Nigger Charlie to anyone who likes Blaxploitation movies and Fred Williamson in particular. It comes complete with a cool theme song and a crazy black old-timer in a big hat who tells some pretty crazy stories. We also have a bad guy who calls himself The Preacher and quotes from the bible before he kills mother fuckers. Sound familiar? Cough... Pulp Fiction.

True Grit (1969)

I broke a general rule in December when I watched the Coen Brothers remake of True Grit (2010) before seeing the original John Wayne classic. Finally a remake that holds up to the original.

The two films are very close. The Coen Brothers obviously chose to stick very true to the original Grit but just strengthen certain elements and add well... more Grit.''

I think I might even like the remake a touch more then the original 1969 film. Mainly due to how {PG} the John Wayne film comes off. Sure there is a bit of nastiness to it. Dennis Hopper's fingers are cut off in the most memorable scene. We also have stabbings and shootings but the Coen Brothers made the John Wayne character of Cogburn much more bad-ass. Wayne's portrayal of the one-eyed bounty hunter is a drunken, overweight rough-neck with a comedic side. While the Coen Brothers eliminated some of that goofiness and cut back on a bit of the sappy shit.

Seeing Dennis Hopper was a treat in its self. This was filmed the same year as Easy Rider and stuff like The Last Movie and American Dreamer were right around the corner. Robert Duvall also shows up as a bad guy named Ned Pepper. Duvall and Hopper were really the high points for me.

Another big difference between the two films is the ending. In the original after the young girl is bit by the rattle snake she is reunited with Cogburn and we leave with a happy ending. In the Coen Brothers version which apparently follows the novel a bit closer the girl loses her arm and never gets to thank Cogburn for saving her life. Leave it to the Coen Brothers to leave us with a downer ending.

Probably the best John Wayne film I have ever seen. Mainly due to the fact that he isn't playing the same exact character that he always plays. The two films are to close to really choose from but I think the Coen Brothers remake has a touch more replay value but "That's a bold statement for a one-eyed fat man".

True Grit (2010)

I recently broke a general rule that the average cinemaniac lives by when I watched a remake before seeing the original. I did this for a few reasons, the first being that the original 1969 film is a John Wayne movie and I personally have never been a big J.W. fan. As a young kid my grandfather used to watch John Wayne movies on the regular and I was just bored out of my mind. Now that I am older I am still bored by old J.W. and prefer the Italian spaghetti westerns and of course Clint Eastwood. On the other hand I have a certain interest in the Coen brothers (No Country For Old Men, Blood Simple). So naturally I gave the 2010 remake the first chance but now I feel the need to go and watch the John Wayne version and compare notes.

The Coen brothers take on True Grit starts off a bit slow with its main focus on a 14 year old girl named Mattie Ross whom sets out to avenge her fathers death with the help of a one eyed bounty hunter named Cogburn (Jeff Bridges). Cogburn and the young girl are joined by a good old boy Texas Ranger named LaBouef played by Hollywood-boy Matt Damon. Matt Damon's character sucks of course and all the entertainment comes from the one eyed Cogburn. Cogburn is a rude & crude, drunkard, killing machine and he has one hell of a voice. I highly doubt John Wayne's character is even half as cool.

In the most memorable scene Cogburn chops a mans fingers off, shoots his friend dead in the head and then leaves the fingerless man bleeding to death with a knife stuck in his chest. We also have an awesome shoot-out on horse back, a typical western target practice scene, some Cobra-snake-fu, gratuitous child kicking, Teeth being ripped out of bleeding mouths, public hangings and a typical anticlimactic Coen brothers ending.

Not a bad flick for a modern western and worth a watch for Coen brothers fans.

A Man Called Blade (1977)

Director Sergio Martino (Torso, Mountain Of The Cannibal God, Hands Of Steele) chops into the Spaghetti Western genre with the tale of a bounty hunter who's weapon of choice is a hatchet.

 "Those who know me call me Blade because I let this do the talking for me" Sure he uses pistols as well but he is a real bad-ass with his miniature axes. In the opening scene which is also the greatest scene in the movie Blade lobs off a mans hand and takes him prisoner. Later Blade sets him free and next time he appears he has a hook for a hand and  Blade burries another axe into his body, this time leaving him cold and dead. Hatchets are embedded into enemy's skulls, chests, backs and stomachs. In one scene our hero even beats the shit out of some big dogs with the hatchet. A Man Called Blade also offers up some social commentary on religious fascists and their moral laws, a massacre in a blackened cave (yes you guessed it, lots of Hatchet-Fu), a violent revolution between laborers with shovels and pick-axes against pistol wielding bandits, a slow motion shoot-em-up massacre (complete with squibs and a bit of gore), sharp twigs shoved into eye lids and a spike pushed into the throat, mud wrestling (between men), artsy-fartsy falling tree flashback scenes and a tale of vengeance.

A Man Called Blade is also the last wave of the Spaghetti Western and it borrows heavily from Enzo Castellari's Keoma which came out one year earlier and is a all around far superior film. The influence is so obvious with dozens of comparisons, right down to the music and general vibe that the film gives off but where Keoma comes off as a stylish. unique masterpiece, A Man Called Blade also known as Mannaja just comes off as a big ripoff. Another problem with this movie is that it runs slightly to long and it just seems to take for ever to wrap it up when it could have been done pretty easily. Still ripoffs can be a lot of fun and A Man Called Blade does have its gory moments. Check it out for some dismemberment and some violence in the mud but only secondly to the great Keoma.

Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)

Takashi Miike proves every time that he is a weirdo. This time around Miike tries his hand at a western but just doing a Japanese western isn't enough for Miike. Instead he chooses to do his own version of the Franco Nero, cult classic, spaghetti western, Django.

The movie was shot in Japan with an all Japanese cast with the exception of Quentin Tarantino. As if this isn't weird enough Takashi Miike chooses to shoot the film in English instead of dubbing over it later. The obvious language problem amongst the Japanese cast just adds to the bizarre tone that Sukiyaki Western Django gives off. Similar to the way that dubbing in Italian horror of the 70's and 80's added a sureal vibe that doesn't exist in the subtitled versions.

Sukiyaki plays more like a prequel to Django then a remake and Miike's stylish form of film making really takes the film further away then anyone could have imagined.

A mysterious gunslinger comes to town in the search of gold but this time he isn't dragging a coffin (that comes later). He is not so humbly greeted by two rival gangs, the Reds and the Whites. Both gangs are in search of the gold and are constantly at war. When our gunslinger doesn't choose sides the odds are stacked against him and we get a total shoot-em-up blood bath. We get a new version of the oh so memorable Gatling gun massacre which really doesn't live up to the Italian original. We get lingerie wearing Asian prostitute (unfortunately no nudity), plenty of gun-fu, some samurai action, crossbow-fu, rape, and a bad-ass bitch who pisses while standing up. holes are blown through stomachs, gang members are blown to shit with dynamite, we get some split skulls with swords, and a man is implaled with a giant crucifix. The best part is that its all done with bright red gore.

Check it out for a fast paced, action packed, mindless good time with bright colors and some very stylized murder scenes. Some call it stupid, some call it art, but I call it fun.

For A Few Dollars More (1965)

This is Sergio Leone's follow up to A Fist Full Of Dollars and a very good one at that. For me this is the weakest in the trilogy but only because I feel it gets a bit slow at times. It still has that Leone style that revolutionized westerns forever.
Clint Eastwood is back as the man with no name and this time he crosses paths with Lee Van Cleef. Eastwood and Cleef both play bounty hunters and they are both after the same man. The man they are hunting is a vicious criminal named Indio and there is a 10,000 dollar reward on his head. Eastwood and Cleef butt heads at first and they have one of all my all time favorite duels in any western. Its a hat shooting duel where they shoot the hell out of each others hats and send them flying through the desert air. I know this doesn't sound like a very entertaining scene but when Sergio Leone is director and you have Ennio Morricone's music playing over it, it really makes for a great piece of cinema. Once the two bounty hunters hats are full of holes and they both realize how dangerous the other is they choose to team up and take on Indio and his gang together.
We get a fair amount of shoot-em-up gun violence in this one but I personally feel the shoot outs in the first flick are slightly more entertaining. Klaus Kinski also appears in this one as a hunchback in Idio's gang of bandits. The final showdown is an excellent set-piece and will later be mastered in the third film in the trilogy The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. Unfortunately nobody laughs at Clint Eastwood's mule in this one but its still an amazing flick from the king of spaghetti westerns.

Cut-Throats Nine (1972)

Cut-Throats Nine is my personal all time favorite western. It is often referred to as a spaghetti western which really isn't accurate because its not Italian. Cut-Throats Nine came out of Spain and it doesn't even look like a western. First off almost the whole movie takes place in the snow, up in the mountains. This just adds to the bleakness to one of the nastiest, violent, nihilistic westerns ever made.
The Cut-Throats Nine is a group of criminals on a chain gang who are being transported to a new prison by a man named Sargent Brown and his daughter Sarah. Sgt. Brown loses his horses and the carriage when a group of bandits attempt to rob him. Now Sgt. Brown along with his daughter are trapped in the middle of nowhere with minimal food and water and a group of murderers and rapists all chained together by the feet. The only thing keeping the Sgt. and his daughter safe from the blood thirsty chain gang is his pistol.
Its not long before the Cut-Throats find out that the chain that binds them together is made of gold. From here on the movie gets more violent and nihilistic. These men are Cut-Throats in every sense of the word. There is no morals here, no remorse and its everyman for himself. If one member of the chain gang breaks his leg the others will happily kill him. There is one scene in the movie where a member of the chain gang is strangled and when none of the Cut-Throats will confess to Sgt. Brown the Sgt. forces the gang to take turns carrying the corpse. While the Sgt. Sleeps the Cut-Throats throw the corpse in the fire and the body is severely charred and burned up. Its a pretty gross scene but the point isn't the gore. The point is the how savage these men are. They burned the corpse so the Sgt. would have no choice but to chop the leg off of the stinking, burned up rotten corpse. True Cut-Throats only care for themselves and this movie shows that in great detail.
Cut-Throats Nine is one of those movies that manages to stay miserable all the way through. There is no happy ending here and you never really expect one either. Every character appears to be doomed in their own way and the ending proves that they are. We have gory gun shots to the face with blood spurting from an eyeball , a machete to the leg, we have the charred corpse BBQ, intestines spill out with a knife to the guts, there are hangings, a rape scene, explosions, horses falling down snowy mountains, strangulation's, a woman has her brains blown out with a shot to the head. The violence seems to go on and on in this one.
Cut-Throats Nine is actually the movie that made me realize I liked westerns. It wasn't Django or The Good The Bad And The Ugly. This one opened me up for a whole genre that I thought was relatively boring. This one is more for the horror fanatic. Check it out!