The Dead and the Damned (Mattia Borrani Productions, 2010), The Pale Door (Shudder,
2020), and The Magnificent Dead (Broom Closet Video, 2010)

The Dead and the Damned (2011) – Tubi

Stand-off with six guns?

Lots of unconvincing shootin’.

Uncomfortable chaps?

Rubbish zombies.

Any good?

As with some previous entries, it gives me no pleasure to rip into this film.

It’s hard to make a film, especially on a low, low budget, and these folks might have given it their all. However, this one suffers from being made in or around 2010, when would-be filmmakers were able to afford high-end digital cameras, but didn’t really know how to use them, and when the mantra of the day was ‘We’ll add it in post.” To that end, this is a stuttering mess, blown out, badly edited, a bit dull in places. The acting is subpar, the script, terrible, and the effects range from ‘good effort’ to ‘dog’s breakfast’. I was going to go a bit easier on the filmmakers, but any women in it were there purely to be put in peril or get their tits out.

Horrible – but it spawned a clutch of sequels, so what do I know?

3/10

The Pale Door (2020) – Prime

Stand-off with six guns?

Some strange sounding gun play.

Uncomfortable chaps?

Ghastly witchy types.

Any good?

I had hopes for this one, as it has Joe R. Lansdale’s name attached, but once again I was let down faster than a bouncy castle in a cactus patch. The story is a game of two halves (much like From Dusk ’til Dawn)  — the first half is a boring bit of set up about the Dalton gang robbing a train; the second half is a full-on monster shoot-em-up. The potential for a bit of feminist commentary was squandered (in fact the one female member of the gang meets a crappy demise) and it really brought nothing new to the genre. Despite some decent prosthetics, this was all a bit dull and unimaginatively shot. Ho hum.

5/10

The Magnificent Dead (2010) – Tubi

Stand-off with six guns?

Plenty of shots fired.

Uncomfortable chaps?

Zombies, lepers, vampires. One of these, apparently.

Any good?

Hell no. Some bullshit plot involving town planners harassing decent townsfolk leads to the hiring of a bunch of fugly mercs. These mercs are supposedly lepers, but they take bullets like zombies and bite the crap out of people like vamps. The direction and editing are dull, the acting ranges from awful to scenery-chewing, and the dialogue is hysterical. A couple of half-decent gore moments though.

4/10

Skinwalker (Uncork’d Entertainment, 2021), And Good Said to Cain (Panta Cinematografica,
1970), and Blood Moon (Uncork’d Entertainment, 2014)

Skinwalker (2021) – Prime

Stand-off with six guns?

Some rootin’ tootin’ shootin’.

Uncomfortable chaps?

A non-shapeshifting shapeshifter.

Any good?

Better than you might expect.

This film has much going for it, despite being just another ‘skinwalker’ flick in a whole sea of ‘skinwalker’ flicks. It looked really good, the production design was great, the acting was better than usual and the script was peppered with gloriously flowery cowboy phrases. The costumes and dirty faces were on point, and there was an excellent moment where a low-down dusty bandit got to pass judgement on a polygamous marriage. The only real let down for me was the titular skinwalker. A shapeshifting demon is suggested but, probably due to budgetary restraints, the creature merely infects poor sap after poor sap, turning them into bloody-eyed zombies. Ultimately, it’s an above average effort that just missed its potential.

7/10

And God Said To Cain (1970) – Prime

Stand-off with six guns?

Lots. One character even chortles, “It’s a stand-off!”

Uncomfortable chaps?

Up for interpretation.

Any good?

Heck yes. This is a spaghetti western I’d never heard of, probably over-shadowed by the Clints and the Francos, but it’s a cracker, and I’m glad I finally caught up with it. Its place on this list might be a tad tenuous as it is not supernatural or horrific per say, but there are enough horror tropes sprinkled in by genre director Antonio Margheriti, and an ‘avenging spirit’ plot, for this film to be considered weird.

Klaus Kinski is perfect as a man framed by bandits who is pardoned from a life sentence and immediately sets out with a cold dish platter during a tornado. A couple of forces of nature. There’s some speculation as to whether Kinski is actually a ghost, and it’s certainly framed that way in certain scenes — think Pale Rider.

Highly recommend.

9/10

Blood Moon (2014) – Tubi

Stand-off with six guns?

Plenty of pistol packing and jewelry-stuffed shotguns.

Uncomfortable chaps?

Overly hairy.

Any good?

Very nearly.

Sadly, my weird western watch-a-thon goes out not with a bang, but with the ping of a phlegm nugget in a spittoon.

Here is another skinwalker story, but it’s woefully light on the Native American side of things, and instead pitches a bunch of strangers and some nefarious bandits against a shifty shapeshifter. It’s all a bit ‘talky’ and light on mayhem, which is a shame because when things get grisly it’s really well done. A couple of fun moments, but not enough to keep me entertained.

6/10

The previous installments of The Weird, Weird West are:

Part I
Part II

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Neil Baker’s last article for us was a review of the game Call of the Sea. Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, outdoor educator and owner of April Moon Books (AprilMoonBooks.com).