Django Kill - If You Live, Shoot! (1967)

Animals

This is a very random, mix bag of a movie. There are some scenes that are simply brilliant(the opening in particular raised my hopes high), but then there are others that are beyond bad - The attack of stock footage animals stands out here. The story and characters are bizarre and its often hard to understand their motives. In the end, this feels like one big experimental film. Worth a look for the curious and for some interesting moments, but don't expect to be engaged in it. April 27, 2008

Despite whatever faults - 5 Stars for throwing out the rule book...

if not spitting on it and stomping it into the dust. This one has quite a bit in common with Fulci's 'Four of the Apocalypse,' beginning with a complete rejection of the conventions of the genre, a generally unwholesome atmosphere, unexpected scenes of Gothic excess that had to be pushing the envelope at the time, and so on.

To contemporary eyes it may look cheap and slack, and the over the top violence will probably look unrealistic with its copious daubs of bright red paint. None of that really matters to me. Giulio Questi has conjured up a really sick and sordid atmosphere here, and re-tailored the Western as a savagely anti-capitalist allegory painted in the broad moral colors of a fairy tale - not a Disney fairy tale, but the old-school European versions full of twisted baroque violence (Cinderella's stepsisters cutting off pieces of their feet to fit in the glass slipper and then getting their eyes pecked out by birds at the royal wedding - that kind of thing).

One thing I love in this movie - the reaction shots. Whenever something dreadful is going on (which is often) the characters pause to watch and so does the movie. There is lots of lewd leering and chop-licking in this movie as it seems to be populated by amoral monsters with morbid, sadistic and/or prurient scopophilia. The rape scene is nothing but a string of these lecherous gazes as the black-shirted gang of "muchachos" violate poor (young) Ray Lovelock with their outrageously knowing eyes. What's really going on in the scene is implied so heavily that you can't really even say it's "implied." As everyone digs like savages into the roasted pig on the table, their threatening looks of longing tell us that chicken is definitely on the menu for later. The sexual looks aren't that different, though, from the ogling of the townspeople during the lingeringly photographed and edited mass lynchings earlier in the movie, or in any number of scenes where the characters seem to almost drool over the violence. Just check out the insert of the bald guy during the scalping scene.

Gold gets a satisfying workout here, both in the physical sense (notably as an instrument of death) and as a symbol. It's all in keeping with the gritty, grand guignol underworld journey - which was borrowed on heavily by Jum Jarmusch's 'Dead Man.' In this case, the road to Hell is paved with gold, and the filmmakers must have sat down and made a list of every depravity that could be done with and in the name of the sparkly stuff. (It is right in keeping that when faced with the probability that a grave will be violated in the name of greed, that it ends up being a whole cemetery of graves in an orgy of frantic digging.)

There are also numerous moments that predate a more experimental cinema that was just around the corner. The final moment of weirdness with the two little kids (and a number of other moments) could have been slipped in there by Goddard, and there is some pretty delirious editing here and there.

Most people probably will not like this. Western fans will hate it. People drawn by the grisly reputation the film has gained are likely to be disappointed. However, if you want something unique and off the wall, this is it. A sick little classic.

Here's hoping for a domestic release of Questi's highly regarded giallo 'Death Laid an Egg' in the near future. March 23, 2008

i was very disapointed...

...and not because i thought this was a sequel to django. i was dissapointed because this movie sucks. i'm not even going to get into the plot. all you need to know is some guy gets double crossed, killed by double crossers, survives(obviously), gets revenge. this movie was slow and i mean slow!!! the movie runs for under 2 hour, but it felt like it lasted for over 3 and i kid you not. i fell asleep many, many times and was asking my self through the whole film "is this crap almost over or what!? whats the freaking point!?". maybe this is just me but i thought that the plot went all over the place and not in a good way. i reaaly had no idea what was going on towards the last half of the film. i couldnt even tell if the whole revenge story was still going on! the plot jumped all over the place and i really started getting a headache after a while. this movie just wasnt that great. it may have been better if the promise of violence would have been delivered. there were only 2 scenes that could be considered shocking. these "violent scenes" dont save the film because everything else is just so dull. this film also lacks loud gunplay and cool characters that make spaghetti westerns so cool. theres a little shooting but nothing impressive. the ending also sucks, the only good thing about the ending being that the film was finally over. the only good thing about this film is it has some good surreal atmosphere and a really cool shot of milians character rolling on the ground thats flipped upside down. tomas milian is also pretty good. overall i must say that this film was a waste of money or at least the amount i payed on it. avoid this unless youre a serious collectorof spaghetti westerns. March 7, 2008

Bloody Western But No Real Spark

I'd heard about DJANGO KILL for a couple years before actually bought the DVD. Unfortunately, I got information about the movie second hand. I thought the movie had to do with zombies. There weren't any zombies, sadly, but there was a guy who came back from the grave for vengeance. That was one of the recurrent themes in the Clint Eastwood movies as well as several other western films.

The star of the movie is Tomas Milian. He made several of the Western movies before moving into the crime arena as a series of villains and renegade cops working outside the rules like Bruce Willis. He's still active in television and movies today while he's in his seventies.

DJANGO KILL is supposed to be one of the bloodiest westerns ever filmed at the time, in the late 1960s. In fact, the disc contains scenes that had been cut out in the film release. Of course, this is before Sam Peckinpah left his indelible mark on the Western movie with classics like THE WILD BUNCH and PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID. But only by a few years.

The movie really isn't much different than any of Eastwood's Man With No Name Westerns. Except that there's no humor or comic relief in the constant sea of shifting loyalties that takes place in this film.

Most of the so-called spaghetti westerns end up with a tough-as-nails hero who is selfishly motivated but finishes up serving some greater good by the end of the movie. Normally he is caught in a crossfire between two rival gangs, neither of which is truly better than the other.

That occurs in this film. After being shot and buried alive, Django (the stranger) rides into town seeking the people who killed his friends and tried to murder him. By the time he arrives, those bad guys have already been dealt with by the town. As it turns out, the town is filled with people that are evil and malicious.

For whatever weird reason, the two Indians that help save Django make bullets of gold for him to use on his enemies. It almost sounded too much like the Lone Ranger for me.

Then the plot gets really strangely twisted. Two of the most powerful men in town divide the gold the original outlaws brought with them. A third powerful man finds out about the gold and wants it. He's willing to kill whoever it takes to achieve his goal.

For the rest of the movie, Django bounces back and forth between the three rivals, between two women - one a gold digger and the other a madwoman, and the town itself. The body count increases dramatically.

I can't really recommend this movie. There's nothing here that you haven't seen before, and probably better elsewhere, if you've seen spaghetti westerns. All of Clint Eastwood's efforts were better in my book. But if you love that kind of entertainment, DJANGO KILL will certainly fill a couple of hours for you.
June 25, 2007

Suckest Western Movie I ever seen

What can I say of something that bad?
This movie sucks.
I waste my money and time buying this pathetic movie. March 30, 2007

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