Four of the Apocalypse (1975)

Stumpy "Stumpy" Preston is an incompetent gambler who loses every single game he plays during the movie (or gets caught cheating).  Bunny is a pregnant prostitute.  Bud is crazy, but in that lovable way.  Clem is the town drunk, but also in that lovable way.  Combing their formidable powers, the four are able to survive a vicious attack on the town but since everyone else is dead they have no choice but to travel the land until they find something.

Along they way they run into both friends and enemies, including a seriously psychotic guy who might be a little of both (mostly the latter).

So why is there a western movie on this blog?  Well, it just so happens that this movie was directed by Lucio Fulci, the Italian goremeister and after watching all of his actual horror movies
I decided to give this one a watch.

It's a pretty good movie to be honest with you.  It's a little nonsensical (kind of like all of Fulci's movies...) but that really just adds to the charm.  It's a very dark western- everyone has got their flaws, and lots of innocent people die horribly.  With a couple of minor changes this could easily become a Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic movie.

The tone is a little uneven.  One minute our heroes are a-whoopin' and a-hollerin' while they shoot their guns at the sky and dead birds rain down from the heavens.  The next minute, someone is getting skinned alive.  It's kind or reminiscent of Cannibal Holocaust (though not nearly as brutal and not as effective).

It's pretty violent for a western, but Fulci fans will be let down by what few gore effects are here.  Gunshot wounds are pleasantly wet and chunky, but the skinning scene is only effective due to the acting, since the effect is so lame.  Yes, at this point in my movie hobby I am rating movies by how effective their gore effects are.

I watched the English dub and it was fine.  Accents seemed to change from scene to scene and there was a lot of unconvincing screaming, but nothing too bad.

It's no Unforgiven, no The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, no El Topo.  Maybe not even Young Guns.  But it's an entertaining 90 minutes of gritty western movie.