I am going to start of by saying that yes- this film was indeed very gory- most especially the up-close disembowelment being the goriest scene in the film, in my opinion. And for 1972, I was highly impressed with the realism of the gore, and all of the other special effects for that matter. The gore is what this film advertised as it's main selling point, however when I saw this film I was quite pleasantly surprised by many of the other great features the film also contained.
I very much enjoyed the directing- from a shot perspective, the composition of scenes such as the flashback hanging scene looked really cool and sinister. And the unsettling reversed collapsing house in the hallucination sequence was, in my opinion, genius.
And not forgetting the story. It is quite a depressing and bleak story in which ultimately no one has what they want to happen. To me, most of the film seemed like nothing much was happening. So for the first part of the film, I was kind of looking for a story line as it got past the intro. That was until I realised that I was beginning to feel rather uneasy as the film progressed. It was slowly but surely building a dark tension that kept me watching with suspense. And I won't reveal it in detail, but I was impressed to an surprising amount with the twist in the end, which I did not expect at all. It did not only shock me, but also brought everything together that didn't make sense before in a nice and tidy way. From that perspective I loved it, but as I'm not a fan of bleak and depressing stories, it didn't enjoy me as much as it could have.
The acting is something I cannot fault either. Although it was an English dubbed version I watched, it did not distract me from the performances given.
But the main point I must say about this film is that it is very peculiar. It's a Spanish-made Western. But it's not just a Western- it's a Crime- Thriller- gore-fest that had a very Horror feel to it, thanks to the fabulously eerie directing of Marchent. Indeed a very strange selection of genres to put together, but it worked! Overall, I was quite surprised how it exceeded my expectations! Personally I am rating it 7.5/10- it's not a masterpiece, but it is definitely a very enjoyable film that that didn't bore me. The reason my star rating is 10/10 is because I feel it needs to be higher on the overall IMDb rating (yes I know that's not how I'm supposed to do it and that rating probably won't make any difference)!
I very much enjoyed the directing- from a shot perspective, the composition of scenes such as the flashback hanging scene looked really cool and sinister. And the unsettling reversed collapsing house in the hallucination sequence was, in my opinion, genius.
And not forgetting the story. It is quite a depressing and bleak story in which ultimately no one has what they want to happen. To me, most of the film seemed like nothing much was happening. So for the first part of the film, I was kind of looking for a story line as it got past the intro. That was until I realised that I was beginning to feel rather uneasy as the film progressed. It was slowly but surely building a dark tension that kept me watching with suspense. And I won't reveal it in detail, but I was impressed to an surprising amount with the twist in the end, which I did not expect at all. It did not only shock me, but also brought everything together that didn't make sense before in a nice and tidy way. From that perspective I loved it, but as I'm not a fan of bleak and depressing stories, it didn't enjoy me as much as it could have.
The acting is something I cannot fault either. Although it was an English dubbed version I watched, it did not distract me from the performances given.
But the main point I must say about this film is that it is very peculiar. It's a Spanish-made Western. But it's not just a Western- it's a Crime- Thriller- gore-fest that had a very Horror feel to it, thanks to the fabulously eerie directing of Marchent. Indeed a very strange selection of genres to put together, but it worked! Overall, I was quite surprised how it exceeded my expectations! Personally I am rating it 7.5/10- it's not a masterpiece, but it is definitely a very enjoyable film that that didn't bore me. The reason my star rating is 10/10 is because I feel it needs to be higher on the overall IMDb rating (yes I know that's not how I'm supposed to do it and that rating probably won't make any difference)!