Death Rides A Horse

A while back I decided to try and see each of Quentin Tarantino's Top 20 Spaghetti Westerns as an introduction to the genre outside of the Leone standards. I'm glad I did as there is very little chance I would've seen this film otherwise. I'm trying not to review films through the veil of Tarantino, but it can be tough when he rips off so much. Oooooh. Indeed an important thing to note is Tarantino's borrowings from this film but let's not let it get in the way. You'll notice the Kill Bill Vol.1 moments as you watch it and it can be a fun element but let's look at the film on it's on merits.

Death Rides a Horse came out in 1967 and stars Lee Van Cleef (star of For A Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad The Ugly and Escape From New York) and John Philip Law. I will probably watch anything with Van Cleef - he's a great screen presence, if you've seen the Dollars films you should be acutely aware of this. He makes a great tough guy and is probably one of the less highly regarded actors in that area. As for Law, I dunno who he is but he makes a nice straight up gun-toter with a score to settle.

As a child, Bill (Law) witnesses the murder of his family by four robbers. Fifteen years later, an expertly honed marksman, he embarks on his revenge. During his quest, he crosses paths with Ryan (Van Cleef), an ex-con who wants the money the robbers owe him. It's a simple but effective story that plays well in the plot but my essential recommendation for this film is two-fold.

Firstly, there are other good Spaghetti Westerns out there aside from Leone's masterpeices. Yes, they're not of the same calibre but they are different takes on that cinematic territory that are often entertaining little pieces. Examples in my expericne include Sergio Corbucci's The Mercenary, and Day of Anger (also starring Van Cleef) and now this. In the 1960's, spaghetti westerns were your basic precursor to the modern action movie and this brings me to my second reason to check out this movie – it's packed with badass moments. Case in point...

Man walks round corner with gun, looking for Van Cleef.
Van Cleef is standing against the wall like “wtf is with dis guy?”.
The man is oblivious and continues to lurk forward.
Van Cleef, cool as hell, whistles to get his attention.
Man turns round and Van Cleef guns him down, before getting on with his biz.

Just watch the trailer and you'll see what I'm talking about, go on.

Straight up classic tough guy movie.

The bad-assery is also in the barrels of great lines in the film, these really elevate it amongst its counterparts, it's script is engaging and you're are pretty interested in the characters considering that's usually not that essential for the enjoyment of such a film. We open with the act that needs avenging, meet the characters and then get down to work, and it keeps it nice and quick, witty and full of glorious Old West action.

Essentially this is a surprisingly entertaining popcorn movie, and I have QT to thank for finding it, love him or loathe him. If you manage to find it (I've just discovered you can watch the whole thing on Youtube, in a single video, yet!) my bet is you'll be impressed. The film boasts the ever present Morricone score that does its job brilliantly as usual adding to the raw power of the film and the over the top drama of the story, it also has some great cinematic flourishes that show enduring originality and an enjoyable over the top nature so well used in Spaghetti Westerns – restraint is clearly not an important element, as in any modern day action film, the story is nicely rounded with two central characters that work more than adequately for a movie of it's kind giving it a great functionality and a punch that still lands nicely today. For fans of the genre I'd say it was a lesser known must see, and it's a decent enough entry to the visceral and less lengthy side of Spaghetti Westerns