One of the more relentless revenge westerns.nice motif, the coming storm as a symbol of hamiltons coming vengeance.Did anyone else think that Dick was somehow going to turn out to be Hamilton’s son?I know hamilton was only in prison 10 yrs but i kept thinking this was going to be the case,he even favored kinksi a bit.
Great film. It was good idea to cast Kinski as a hero. He is very good in this role of avenger.
I like the gothic horror feeling in this film. You can clearly see that Margheriti was one of the best horror-directors in Italy before he started making westerns.
Good, atmospheric revenge film. Cheap production, but Margheriti makes something out of nothing.
Too bad that there wasn’t enough money to make the nearing Tornado visible. But it works nevertheless.
Margheriti’s best SW by far and Kinski’s 2nd best. I love especially his line: I’m coming with the Tornado.
Director Antonio Margheriti did a good job in that one. Maybe his best Movie after his Gothic Horror Danza Macabra. Klaus Kinski with one of his best performances and this time he is an avenger. Not a totally nice guy, which doesn’t really exists in SW. Klaus looks scary as ever and so the combination of Gothic and Western work well.
Just watched this one for the first time this morning. Excellent film, possibly top 20 stuff for me.
Scherp’s review pretty much covers everything I could say about it but I loved Margheriti’s use of sounds in this. the dripping water in the tunnels, the ringing bell. Very effective. Great to see Kinski in a proper starring role too as opposed to the ‘top billing but five minute appearance’ roles he so often did.
Four stars.
Above average SW, but it still needs way to go to call it great. The dark atmosphere at the town in the night of the tornado is amazing and sinisterly captivating. The major flaws of the film however are a) simple plot without any tremendous twists, if any at all b) poor, uninspired dialogue c) the fact that Kinski certainly does not look like an avenger in that red (!) sweater, i can’t believe they couldn’t find something more suitable for that case. He is not what you’d call a handsome guy either and that ugly thing on him simply made things worse. The score isn’t that memorable as well. My rating is somewhere between 7.5-8/10, so i guess 3 stars will suffice.
This is a quite enjoyable SW. KK is in top form in an expanded role, although as the featured character, he is almost subdued compared to some of his shorter, nastier appearences. This, however, is not a one man show as the supporting cast is afforded plenty of screen time and all do well. Now, the ‘tornado’. I love the idea of weather having such a major impact on the action. That was a nice strong windstorm, and it was a character unto itself, woven into the story and performed very well, but not close to a tornado! Overall a top SW viewing experience. 4/5
One of my favorite sw & the best I’ve seen in a while. I have always known that this movie was held in high regard, but for financial reasons, took a while to get my hands on. I love the dark/gothic spags with these horror inspired overtones. I would even challenge that while most sw’s that fall in the debatable ‘gothic’ sub-genre (which I agree there is) only have gothic moments, this movie I would say could actually be a horror movie (Jaws is considered one). There are more horror elements in this one than western elements. The crows, the storm, the dark caverns with spider webs, the carnage, the bell tolling, the wind, the music, he appears & disappears into the dark & seems invincible. He stalks & kills just about everyone. He shoots, strangles & hangs his prey. The only thing western is the backdrop. I didn’t even care exactly what his motivation was for revenge to make this movie great. You don’t always have to have everything spelled out for you. In some case it’s even irrelevant. The contradiction between the storm (which of course is a metaphor for Kinski’s character’s revenge) & the pristine, upscale interior of the house while Kinski’s murderous rage unfolds outside was great.
