Horror Westerns...
 

Avenger and I were talking about these hybrids a while ago. Anyone else dig this truly strange sub-genre? I'm talking the likes of Ghost Town, Curse Of The Undead, Pale Rider, and even violent Gothic Westerns out of Italy like Fulci's Four for the Apocalypse; Kill, Django, Kill; and The Stranger's Gundown. Even the novels Dead in the West and Magin Wagon by Joe R Lansdale. Anyone have any faves or opinions????

I'll go ahead and post mine. Ghost Town, Sundown, The Last Outlaw, High Plains Drifter and The Legend of the Phantom Rider. Phantom Rider is one of my favorites. There's no dialogue for at least 10 minutes of the movie. Really cool and surprising flick. I really want to see the Django movies b/c Franco Nero is the shit. Are they worth it Dr. K?

by no means a horror movie but certainly graphic enough with a staggering body count in an all-out final scene that makes scarface's look like a disney production would be the wild bunch

Not horror, but great movie nonetheless.

High Planes Drifter wasn't horror, that was straight Western

This was a touchy subject with Ravenbomb too. You even spelled it the same way he/she did...incorrectly. It was a western/ghost story.

They never brought up ghosts. They implied it at the end, but that doesn't make it a ghost story. Also, Ravenbomb mixed up it with something else.

I loved High Plains Drifter and Pale Rider, the man with no name, behold a pale horse, and he who sat upon him was death.

Avenger have you ever seen the movie Purgatory? I believe thats what it was called, where all the old gunfighters are in Purgatory, and if they revert back to their old ways of killing and such they were taken to the gates of Hell. If I remember correctly they had to spend so much time there before they were allowed final passage to the afterlife. I know it was a made for TV film but I thought it was quite good. Kind of an intersting twist on a western.

Speaking of just westerns, my favorite is tied between Outlaw Josey Wales and Tombstone both excellent films.

Ravenbomb didn't mix it up with anything, he/she was just being a jackass.

It was a strong implication that he was an avenging ghost. The title even implies it. It has a double meaning to me. He was literally a high plains drifter and also high plains (heaven) and drifter (restless and wandering spirit). Ghost story in my eyes. It is an opinionated topic though.

Did it star Randy Quaid as Doc Holliday?

High Plains Drifter was def. about a ghost taking his revenge on the town. Although I didnt understand it until I was older, as a kid I loved the Eastwood westerns and just saw it as such.

Pale Rider may have not been a ghost story really but I think the idea that he may have risen from the dead to avenge his death comes to my mind. I saw this as the avenging angel coming to earth in the form of a slain gunfighter to right the wrongs of evil and protect the innocent from it. Just my opinion.

Now that you mention it I believe it did.

In that case I saw bits of it and remember thinking it had an excellent storyline. I also think Donnie Wahlberg was Billy the Kid. Hehe. I'm sure TNT or TBS will replay it sometime. Hope so anyway.

There's no ghostiness until the last shot in which he dissapears. To be a ghost story it should be a story about a ghost, or having to do with ghosts.

Doesn't he magically appear in the opening shot too? It's still a ghost story to me. Along the same lines that the Wraith is a ghost story. He's been wronged and he's back to make it right. "He's dead and he's pissed off."

I think you are correct about Walberg also, the cast was pretty good in it, forgive me I am not good with remembering names, but I think you would enjoy it. It was different. I would swear I saw it at blockbuster, after it was on but I know it was a TNT original.

I'll try to find it as I am a huge fan of this particular sub-genre. Thanks for making me remember it.

He kinda fades in, but that can be attributed to the fact that he was coming up on the horizon, and they did the 'waviness from heat' thing.

Yes, Avenger, Django rocks. The 2nd one isn't as good--but like you said, Franco Nero is the shit whether he's playing a gunfighter, mafioso, or a ninja. He drags a coffin around behind him, in which he keeps a machine gun, and he mows down a town full of Ku Kluxers. One of my favorites. A must see.

Thanks Dr. K. Sounds pretty freakin' awesome. I think I saw a Django boxset at one time.

Yes, the Django box-set was released by Anchor Bay a few years back. I think Blue Underground or someone has picked it up now.

What do you think about the rest of the series? Did they replace Nero? If so, I probably won't want to see those.

Django and Django's Great Return are the only official Django movies and the only two to star Nero. For some reason Sergio Corbucci never copyrighted the character so everyone was releasing a Django movie or redubbing an existing Western to seem like a Django movie. Someone even released one of Nero's mob movies as Django in Italy. Gotta lovie exploitaion!!!! Thogh not really sequels, Kill, Django, Kill and The Stranger's Gundown are both great!

Haha. Gotta love exploitation indeed. I'll check into those, though I doubt I will find them in my neck of the woods.

This is more sci-fi/western but a really entertaining movie I love is Jesse James meets Frakensteins daughter....

Yeah, I dig it too, Ritualistic. I don't have near as many posters as you do (actually only three originals) but I do have a nice one for Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter and Billy The Kid Meets Dracula. Groovy.

Director Eastwood always ascertained an ambiguity about the true nature of the character, and IMO, I never viewed it as a ghost story either. Avenging force, but not a ghost. It was basically a revamping of High Noon, with a more sadistic 70s approach.

I always thought the Mad Max trilogy was a reworking of Leone's dollar trilogy. The format(at least for the 2nd and 3rd, the first was more revenge driven) was basically - stranger arrives in town, plays both sides against each other, gets savagely beaten which results in apocolyptic showdown. Same as Leone.

So, I guess, Max was the Mad Man with No Name. :rolleyes:

Msny years ago, back when cable still played some interesting stuff, I saw a preview for this film:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051612/

The Fiend Who Walked the West.

I never got to see it, and I still haven't. It looked very interesting though, and I would love to see it some day.

I think I have, once back in that dreamlike diverse cableland of yore(Christ, forgot Robert Evans was in it, what was he 14?). If I remember right, it was a good one, but at the time, I wasn't much into American oaters, so my memories of it have slipped away. Let me know if you find it.

Ya blue undergorund put out a 2 disc special edition.

how does Django's Great Return compare to the original, is it also directed by Corbucci?

You'll be waiting a long time, if you're waiting for him to answer. He hasn't posted in this since 2004.


Enzo Castellari made it.

If you want the most comprehensive reviews of SWs, go to

Shobary's - http://spaghettiwesterns.1g.fi/

One of the best on the net. Or pick up any of Sir Christopher Frayling's books on the subject, like "Something to do with Death", the ultimate Leone book.

I was just waiting for anyone to answer it, thanks.

wait, are you saying Leone wrote a book?

It's a book about Leone

No, but he was an actor in his youth. He's here in The Bicycle Thief as the priest with glasses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK0WL-ORD6I

nice Im gonna grab that.

@ Festered
nice clip, thanks for showing me that.

So as not to further turn the Fulcio thread into a Leone thread, I've transferred this convo over here, sfear.

There are other things in the trilogy that disrupt even that timeline. Models of guns, newspapers, etc. There is even good reason to believe that the MWNN isn't even the same person, as he really did have a name in each film- Joe, Manco(Mock) and Blondie.

Even more bizarre was Leone's approach towards the female parts(what few there were) in his films. Usually portrayed as whores, shrews or rape victims- or a combination of all 3 as in Once Upon a Time in America. Claudia Cardinale had the biggest female role of all his films- Jill in OUATITWest, fulfilling the Mother/Whore fantasy(see my Hitch thread) as the unattainable Madonna.

It has even been suggested that Duck, You Sucker(Leone's only foray into Zapata westerns) may be the first western with homosexual undertones. Homo-erotic imagery abounds(most notably, the egg sucking German general Ruiz). The characters of Juan(Rod Steiger) and Sean(James Coburn) gradually merge into a single personality, which then diverges, with each becoming the other. The restored flashback finale reveals a scene which leaves the ambiguity to the viewers discretion.

By all accounts, Leone was a normal, happily married man. Secret fantasies, perhaps?


Funny story about that scene. Leone had just purchased a yellow sweater(food and warm clothing were luxury items in post-war Europe) and was wearing it under the priest's frock. The water soaked the dye in the costume thru to it, and ruined it. He was, understandably, pissed.

House part 2 was good.

Westerns, Horror Westerns, Italian Westerns, Spaghetti Westerns - I have absolutely NO frame of reference. It's a genre that I need to catch up in, but I'm not really sure exactly where to start.

HOWEVER

The reason why I wanted to post in here is that I thought that Western fans might find this interesting (I'm actually pretty intrigued myself):

One of Takashi Miike's latest film is his take on the Western genre: Sukiyaki Western Django

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV...X93_SY140_.jpg

With the title, it seems as though he is obviously playing off of Django in some way, shape, or form. I'm fascinated at what Miike's take on the Western would be, though since I have no frame of reference with with Western genre, I'm not sure if I'd appreciate it or get it as much as true Western fans would.

At any rate - If you're interested in the genre, this might be worth checking out. From Italian to Japanese, it might be an interesting evolution. And if you DO check it out, let me know what you think because I'm a Miike fan.

One word: Leone.

Start with the Man With No Name trilogy: Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and - of course - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Then go for Once Upon a Time in the West.

Not a spaghetti western, but you should realy check out High Plains Drifter, too - I'm sure its been discussed in this thread already (I haven't read the whole thing), but it's basically a western shot with the sensibilities of a horror movie. One of my all-time favourites.

From there...wow, there's so much ground to cover.