Did they… make a game out of this…? Or is this just a weird Dvd / Vhs cover.
Having never owned the VCI version of this, I just watched the RetroVision DVD and was rather impressed by the quality 
I love that 80’s aesthetic! It reminds me of the great box art that covered 80’s and 90’s games. It’s kind of a shame how cover art has devolved.
Time to pre-order
I received my copy lunch time today (ordered it last weekend), one day before schedule and just watched it.
The bluray looks good in image quality which is a plus. The story is a bit thin with not too much variation just Steffen getting his revenge and rather slowly in the end after a quick start, but the mood is fine.
Music could have been used more frequently to set the mood. Only a few scenes were accompanied by fine trumpet music. Too many were quiet.
The “ghost question” is no question for me. Like Tomas Milian’s character in Django Kill he obviously survived the attack that was shown in a flashback.
The end was perfect IMO.
The actors were in some cases familiar to me including Steffen as the rather well visually styled antihero and Carlo Gaddi from Requiem For Gringo (which I think is a SW with more “flesh” and better music and landscapes than Django The Bastard/The Stranger’s Gundown).
As mentioned in this thread it has elements in common with Clint Eastwoods High Plains Drifter which I think is better, much better (9/10).
As with many of these lesser known SWs I have rather carefully picked out they usually end up rated 6 or 7/10 by me, with no exception this time. I will watch it a second time within weeks to get a better impression.
As part of restoring @lordradish 's A Fistful of Pasta, two Django the Bastard reviews have been archived in the SWDb. Some animated pictures are still missing, and so is Len’s account here in the SWDb. Shows you how old this website is, once you dig into the past… you find all sorts of lose ends 
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Django_the_Bastard_review_by_JD
https://www.spaghetti-western.net/index.php/Django_the_Bastard_review_by_Len
I think I’ve been luckier with DtB than most. When I first saw it I’d have agreed with what seems to be the consensus view, i.e. that a brilliant concept had been let down by a stolid central performance and direction that was no more than fitfully inspired, leaving one of those “historically important” movies that get faint praise for doing something first that others (AGSTC, High Plains Drifter) then do better. With repeated viewings, however, it’s really grown on me. Maybe I’ve got used to the weird way that Steffen can actually be quite expressive (I don’t know), and Rada Rassimov’s angular, alert beauty definitely floats my boat. But I also think DtB builds real tension, and even that the score is pretty bloody good. I could see it on the edges of a top 20.
On the “ghost” question
seems right on target to me. Maybe it’s safer to call Django a revenant, which usefully covers anything between a spirit and a walking corpse (driven here by a vengeful spirit?). Uncanniness is all about that kind of uncertainty.
Two things that strike me:
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Luke’s mad screams of “This is his blood!!!”: no-one can tell me that Catholic-raised Italians (and didn’t Steffen write most of the screenplay?) wouldn’t have heard in that line an echo of the Mass - Matthew 26:28, “This is my blood of the New Covenant” (“Hic est enim sanguis meus novi testamenti”), mutates there into “the cup [Calix] of my blood”). This means that the panic around Django’s uncanny status gets to connote all those abstruse debates about the Real Presence in the Mass and the workings of faith. What do the characters, and we, (think we) believe and/or know?
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The episode where the Murdoks and their cronies clear out the town’s citizens, to leave an open field for hunting down Django, has an emotional weight and intensity that even on first viewing gave me a (good) shock. It starts at 42:35: two of M.'s heavies tell the local coffin-maker to “pack your stuff and get out of here”, in the face of his feeble protests (“Why? This is my home!”), a shopkeeper is similarly driven out and his goods trashed. What then follows registers as an incipient diaspora: men, women and children file out of town, to the accompaniment of gunfire as M.‘s henchmen drive them into exile. “Vasco & Mancuso” really come into their own here; the episode is accompanied by a bleak processional that doesn’t die away until 46:19. By that time we’ve moved to an interior scene, and Alida has just asked the Murdoks "Why are ya makin’ everyone leave town?" Or, more exactly, why is everyone carting all their worldly goods along like a displaced population on the move, when supposedly they are only vacating the town for a day or two? I suspect the film is conjuring up a scenario with recent or contemporary resonance, though darned if I know what. WW2? The Istrian-Dalmatian Exodus of ethnic Italians? Vietnam? Another colonial war? Whatever the reference it’s a powerful, evocative sequence by any standards, underlining the tyranny that the Murdoks, the deranged Caligula-like sheriff-popping Luke in particular, have come to wield.
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Thanks to @Carlos , this movie’s page in the SWDb has been updated to the new “SWDb 3.0” format .
Please have a look and let us know if there’s something you can add (information, trivia, links, pictures, etc.).
Django the Bastard is one of Steffen’s best movies in my opinion. I prefer this film over High Plains Drifter. HPD is awesome but I prefer the dark, even creepy, atmosphere of DTB. Django is also more mysterious than the Stranger from HPD.
Everyone have different theories on whether Django is a ghost, a human or some other paranormal entity. I liked @mrchallenge’s theory on how Django is a paranormal entity but his powers are stored in his gun, and when he loses the gun he becomes a vulnerable human being.
My theory is similar: I think Django is a paranormal entity who has taken the form of a man to achieve his revenge. Kind of like Ahti the Janitor from the video game Control. Ahti seems like a normal man at first, but in reality he’s a paranormal entity who has taken the form of a Finnish man and works as a janitor at the Federal Bureau of Investigation so he can keep on eye on the things there and make sure bad forces don’t take over.
Ahti can read minds and enter rooms even though he doesn’t have the keys. Django is shown to appear out of nowhere and he can seemingly disappear into thin air if you look away just for a few seconds. Django can’t read minds though, but he seems to be very aware of what’s going on in the town. Maybe he watches from the shadows? Maybe his supernatural powers allow him to know everything that’s going on?
There are also some connections to Seven Deadly Sins in the film. Rada Rassimov’s character would obviously be greed, the crazy little brother would be envy and Django could be wrath. In addition, Django himself says that greed is a deadly sin.
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There is now a poll for this one at the top of the page!
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one of my favorite 
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I just saw it and rather liked it. I loved the atmosphere and the style. Many of the scenarios were interesting and unusual. The biggest drawback for me was the often bad dialogue (although that might´ve just been because of the dubbing) and the blone guy, who reminds me of an older Roberto Dell’acqua (which is not good). I am glad that the flashbacks in the US cut happen later in the film as you suddenly understand what´s happening, but not from the start. I too wondered about the “13” years ago thing, and although it was apparently a dubbing goof, I like to think that they were Confederate soldiers still fighting, choosing not to give up. Synapse´s release looks great. A 7/10 film for me
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Can’t say that I loved this one, although the poor English dub (from the otherwise great synapse blu ray) may have been a factor. The guy who dubbed Steffen was okay but whoever did the crazy blonde brother…yikes.
The movie itself had a lot of missed potential for me. Great premise, great opening scene and some brilliant shots here and there but it was let down by too many scenes that dragged, lack of a strong villain and no real surprises on how the story played out . I can’t say I’m a big Steffen fan but this was one of the better performances of his I’ve seen, and he always delivers in the action scenes. I liked about 90% of the score but there were a few parts that seemed very out of place.
Overall I found it to be worth the watch but a fairly middling effort nonetheless. I don’t think Garrone is a bad director per se but he doesn’t do much to elevate the material. The highlights were definitely the opening & the scene where the three gunmen are sent back into town wearing crosses; might be the two best scenes Garrone ever filmed.
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I agree. I watched the film once about 17 years ago and couldn’t really remember it very well. Just watched the Blu-ray and thought it was excellent! The picture quality improved the film a great deal.
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Undoubtedly my favourite Steffen movie, love the atmosphere to it, the unanswered (more or less) question about whether Django is a ghost or not… Easily in my top ten spaghetti fliks
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In the film they did, however, basically explain that he was a ghost. I personally would´ve preferred a little ambiguity, but they felt like giving us concrete answers was a good idea. Still like the movie though.
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I don’t think it’s that obvious. It’s entirely possible that he survived the massacre.
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Yes this film is ineeed. If you don’t already own the Synapse release… pick it up!!!
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Although the way he disappeared in the ending makes him kinda seem like a ghost, but when he got injuried and started bleeding, Garrone basically told us that Django is in fact not a ghost.