Director: Giulio Petroni
Stars: Lee Van Cleef, John Phillip Law and Mario Brega
Genre: Action | Western
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 114Mins
Tagline: " When You've Waited Fifteen Years To Find A Man... It's A Shame You Can Only Kill Him Once!"
The story, which is very generic, yet provocative, is about a young man who is seeking revenge for the death of his family. He witnesses his parent’s murder at a very young age. While the massacre is taking place, he is observing their features: one has a tattoo on his chest of playing cards, the other has a skull necklace, and the other has scars. The movie also uses a technique of shooting that would actually be implemented in the Kill Bill movies: the zooming in and changing of color palette. I understand Tarrantino is only doing homage, but I prefer always originality over imitation. Then again his style is grindhouse, and thanks to him audiences get to hear about films that have long since been forgotten. Anyways, the rest is very obvious, he goes in search of each man and finds out they have successful lives: (one is a mayor, the other a sheriff) aiding the young man is a strange mysterious man who little is known about. All we know is that he was let out from jail and he is in search of the same men that killed the young kid’s parents. The movie also adds a neat and unexpected twist, which is a nice bonus. I own this movie in various box sets of westerns. It is actually available free to the public on YouTube. But if you wish to see the movie in its original Widescreen format, I recommend the Wild East Prod DVD; contains the original aspect ratio and has been digitally remastered.
Stars: Lee Van Cleef, John Phillip Law and Mario Brega
Genre: Action | Western
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 114Mins
Tagline: " When You've Waited Fifteen Years To Find A Man... It's A Shame You Can Only Kill Him Once!"
It’s unfortunate that Lee Van Cleef didn’t become as popular as Clint Eastwood. I was watching a couple of his Spaghetti Westerns, and I must say that he had an underrated talent. Death Rides A Horse may not be the most original Western, In fact it is very straightforward and has plenty clichés. But there is definitely something about these Italian/Spaniard westerns that call my attention, they are wonderfully shot in widescreen, and at times have a decent selection of stars; some may be unknown, but, like Van Cleef, they have hidden and underrated talent. Take for example Mario Brega; he starred in dozens of these westerns. He is perhaps best remembered for playing the second hand to Angel Eyes in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. He like many others of this genre was actually underrated actors, which had to rely on working in lower budget films.
Death Rides a Horse may be a low budget western, but it is actually a very well made one for the budget they had. Ennio Morricone actually scored this movie, which is actually one of the best things about these westerns. Morricone always brings a provocative score that uplifts the film to a level of grandeur. I probably mentioned this before in another review I did, but Tarrantino actually used the score of this movie and of Navajo Joe (another western scored by Morricone) for his Kill Bill films. I will leave a score of Death Rides a Horse and Kill Bill to demonstrate this.
The story, which is very generic, yet provocative, is about a young man who is seeking revenge for the death of his family. He witnesses his parent’s murder at a very young age. While the massacre is taking place, he is observing their features: one has a tattoo on his chest of playing cards, the other has a skull necklace, and the other has scars. The movie also uses a technique of shooting that would actually be implemented in the Kill Bill movies: the zooming in and changing of color palette. I understand Tarrantino is only doing homage, but I prefer always originality over imitation. Then again his style is grindhouse, and thanks to him audiences get to hear about films that have long since been forgotten. Anyways, the rest is very obvious, he goes in search of each man and finds out they have successful lives: (one is a mayor, the other a sheriff) aiding the young man is a strange mysterious man who little is known about. All we know is that he was let out from jail and he is in search of the same men that killed the young kid’s parents. The movie also adds a neat and unexpected twist, which is a nice bonus. I own this movie in various box sets of westerns. It is actually available free to the public on YouTube. But if you wish to see the movie in its original Widescreen format, I recommend the Wild East Prod DVD; contains the original aspect ratio and has been digitally remastered. 
No comments:
Post a Comment