Is there any news on the TBA blu ray slated for August? I was thinking of getting the koch dvd but saw the blu listing
I agree Stanton, thought it was a different kind of movie to the typical but nonetheless I really enjoyed it, thought Kinski was great and had some maniacal moments , and thought Paolo Casella was super cool as the mysterious John Webb, Defo not a classic in any way but a good solid movie.
All in all, to leave the discovery of the bodies and what happened to Eleanorâs husband to the viewerâs imagination is not a bad thing.
I donât get the lukewarm response to this one, itâs one of my absolute favourites and I think the best of all the really low-budget spaghetti westerns. Normally I hate the sight of the gravel pits but I think Vari, in a genius move, used the low budget to his advantage here by giving the film a dream-like quality with the fake desert, shoddy acting, strange moments like the water scene and the surreal score, and it makes sense given most of the characters would have that insomniac feel in the second half. I sort of liken it to Eyes Wide Shut, my favourite Kubrick movie, where Kubrick used a screen projector to recreate the streets of New York. The method was always criticized but to me it gives the film the dream-like quality it needs, and I think the same can be said for this movie.
This is on my re-watch list. I have the Koch blu-ray so Iâll giver another goâŚ
A tad slow, but very in tense western, ( a lot of the film takes place in a single room/ area) reminded me a bit of Day of the Outlaw (1959) but is much more violent, and gritty. Kinski I enjoyed very much as he is out of his mind, and doesnât care whoâs harmed along the way.
Fell asleep the first time, so I just gave it another go. Not quite the masterpiece I was expecting but definitely a good film. I could have done without the jingle bells though. My rating: 3/5
3 chances Iâve given it. I like slow films but this one just fails to captivate my attention.
I donât get it ! ⌠this is far from being a âgood filmâ, maybe itâs watchable as a SW oddity - but it felt like a very very long 90 minutes to me.
Some people seem transfixed by Kinskiâs bad behaviour - I personally find it as appealing as watching a two year old brat having a tantrum ⌠and thatâs fundamentally whatâs going on here.
Kinski appears on screen, man handles / woman handles all of the cast, either grabbing the leading man by the lapels (quite unnecessarily) or pushing around members of his own gang and the members of the stagecoach party. He then goes upstairs for a nap (just like an exhausted brat) and even punches the pillows around, just to let them know whoâs the star / in charge.
When we return to him, he bumps into a wash basin and stand, and of course these inanimate objects must feel his wrath too - surprise surprise, he kicks it across the room ⌠then downstairs for some more strutting and sulking which eventually culminates in him shooting one of his own gang.
The plot is as thin and predictable as they come, and the direction creates no real tension or surprises.
The only things of note, for me, was the pleasant theme song and the landlordâs granddaughter, âSandyâ or âSantaâ, Adriana Giuffre 
1 out of 5
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the landlordâs granddaughter, âSandyâ or âSantaâ, Patrizia Adiutori 
Thanks for the correction 
This is the greatest movie Iâve ever seen.
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About time you do an update on your top 20 here?
I feel sorry for all my other favourite films. This one towers over them all.
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I actually really love this film, itâs probably my favourite spaghetti that was shot on a shoe-string budget. Either this or The Dirty Outlaws.
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I recently rewatched this spagh, intrigued by comments of some forum members here, thinking that I didnât get it first time around. Well, it is solid 3 out of 5 for me, and I still donât understand what is so special about it for some of you folks. 
Utterly riveting from beginning to end. I keep mistaking it for Leoneâs work.
Hope we get a 4K collectors blu-ray of it soon.
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I love a lot about this film particularly Kinskiâs performance and the atmosphere, but I also love the surrealism, the pacing and the music (in spite of or maybe even because the really strange lyrics). I also like how itâs lower on action and more about mystery, even if the âmysteryâ is pretty predictable. I think it all blends together really well. Itâs actually the only Vari western that I like, I thought Django the Last Killer and A Hole in the Forehead could have been good but were held back by a lack of money and I watched Degueyo sometime late last year and thought it was awful.
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Yes, I liked Kinski as well, also thought cinematography was handled pretty well (very dynamic sometimes, I like that) and editing was superb especially when Kinski rages around. Canât really say the soundtrack had much of an impact on me, but probably served the movie. Honestly, I donât remember. 
I donât see any surrealism involved, what the hell did you mean?
The atmosphere of the movie is great, Iâm always sport with this kind of self-contained mystery thrillers, hell, my favorite Tarantino is Hateful Eight, which, I bet was inspired by Variâs efforts here. The thing is, I donât find the happenings in the movie that much interesting and it is just okay spagh for me.
Easily one of the most inventive and forward-looking soundtracks in the genre. It has probably the most soundscape-ish sound of all spaghetti western soundtracks. Despite being fairly conventional, you can hear the main theme is apparently all swathed in echo when you really strain your ears and has that lovely floating tone to it, the organ sound seems almost âdrownedâ in reverberations which gives it this ethereal quality. Iâm not sure whether there is an echo on it or not, but it sounds very ephemeral for some reason. With that being said, itâs the sound design that really defines this specific score and really makes it shine. Migliardi employs so many spatial sound effects that a large chunk of the soundtrack actually consists of musique concrète bits which just endow the whole film with this surreal feel. As opposed to an overwhelming majority of old musique concrète, Migliardiâs sonic experiments still sound fresh here and blend with the rest of the score absolutely perfectly. And weâre talking here about a soundtrack from 1971 which is pretty amazing. Conventional songs are damn catchy too and sound great, superbly amalgamating with experimental pieces and creating a very distinctive kind of score and aural experience.
I wouldnât necessarily say surrealism, since there is nothing specifically surreal about it. But the film does have a very hypnagogic, oneiric atmosphere conjured up by the aforementioned sound design and Villaâs fancy camerawork. I would say Iâm pretty much on the same page as Bill (assuming he hasnât changed his mind), I have never really cared about the tension aspect of it all that much and itâs always been mostly about its dreamlike tone and feel for me. Viewing the film is a bit like replaying a memory of watching some B-movie which has been degraded by my oblivion and time and itâs something I mightâve seen years ago, but I donât really remember it all that well, recalling it through a thick veil of nostalgia. Gosh, that sounds super pretentious, but thatâs the best I can describe it, itâs just something thatâs very hard to verbalize. I mean I have seen the film like nine times (Iâm sure Dean is super jelly right now) and itâs always been this very distinct, odd, stagnant and stupefying experience for me.
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