Death and Tarantino

As amazing as it seems, there is somebody out there with a fondness for Death Rides a Horse, the film we talked about yesterday, and he's like a billion times more famous than me. That's right, Quentin Tarantino, ever the fan of crappy movies from the '60's and '70's, inserted a number of references to Death in his brilliant film Kill Bill Vol. 1. Since the two movies have similar themes of revenge (served cold, no less), the reference is appropriate.

First, watch this trailer for the American release of Death Rides a Horse (a trailer which makes the film look totally awesome). Note the music on the soundtrack near the end...



Again, absolutely badass trailer. Now watch this short scene from Kill Bill 1...



That's right, it's the same damn music! When I first saw Kill Bill, I hadn't seen Death Rides a Horse, so I obviously didn't catch the reference. When I bought Kill Bill a year later, after I found Death in that Wal-Mart bargain bin, I heard that music riff and danced around like a giddy schoolgirl. Just the fact that Tarantino is referencing Death at all is awesome, but the context of that song (called "Death Rides a Horse" and composed by Ennio Morricone) in KB, as a lead-in to The Bride's final showdown with O-Ren Ishii, is just amazing.

The other major reference to Death Rides a Horse is in the Bride's flashback sequences. Every time she confronts one of her adversaries in the film, the camera zooms in to a closeup of her eyes and the screen goes a pale red, as her memory of the attack appears faintly in front of her (if you watch that short clip again you can see what I mean). This is a direct homage to Death Rides a Horse, as the hero, John Phillip Law, has exactly the same kinds of quick flashbacks when confronting the people he's out to take revenge on.

The "Bill" character in KB may also be referencing the hero Bill in Death. There's also a line in the trailer that reads, "The bandits who killed five defenseless people made one big mistake...they should have killed six" (awesome). That almost exact same line is said by Uma Thurman in Kill Bill 2.

Once again, I was totally amazed when I found out that Tarantino had paid homage to Death Rides a Horse, and in such an awesome way, in his Kill Bill movies. I mean, a famous director, a crappy old western. What were the odds?

Death Rides A Horse (1967)

Perhaps my greatest failing as a human being is my unflinching weakness for crappy spaghetti westerns from the '60's. I just can't get enough of them. When I'm flipping through the stations on a boring Saturday and see Jack Palance come on to the screen decked out in black cowboy hat and duster, sneering and mercilessly chewing scenery, it has some sort of hypnotic effect. Kryptonite, thy name is God's Gun.

As far as cheesy old westerns go, Death Rides A Horse is one of the all-time greats. On a pure artistic level, it's a pretty bad movie, the production values are shoddy, and some of the dialogue is banal beyond belief, but there's a certain weird charm here. It's like a Sergio Leone western without the talent. In a way, though, the film's badness is where the entertainment lies. It's kind of fun to just sit back and count the ways it mimics but never matches Leone (Ennio Morricone even does the score, probably just collecting a paycheck). It's like a cute little four-year-old holding a bat and trying to emulate his favorite baseball player; he looks silly, but hey, you gotta love him. At least he's trying.

The premise of Death Rides A Horse is fantastic. John Phillip Law plays Bill, a man who has lived the past 15 years obsessed with getting revenge on the five bandits who slaughtered his family and left him to die when he was just a young boy. One day he comes across a clue that could potentially lead him back on the murderers' trail, and that's when he meets up with just-released convict Lee Van Cleef (that great, hawk-nosed Western legend, better known as Angel Eyes in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly), who is looking for these same exact people, for very different reasons.




You can probably kind of guess where this is going. Yes, Van Cleef has connections to the group that murdered Law's family, and yes, he was there that night, and yes, this does lead to a bit of, um, awkwardness between the two allies. It also turns out that each of the bandits Law is gunning for have gained some sort of societal prominence (one is a powerful banker), so getting to them might not be so easy.

Death Rides A Horse had the potential, with maybe a bigger budget and a better director, to be legendary. There is so much that could have been done with the whole death motif, but unfortunately a lot of potential symbolism was ignored. Think about it. Law's character has done nothing, nothing, for the past 15 freaking years but dwell on his family's murder and plot revenge against the perpetrators. He's basically become the Grim Reaper. Don't you think the filmmakers could have run with this? Sort of like Pale Rider, only not as laughably pretentious.

All this is nitpicking, though. This is a fun film. As I said before, it isn't necessarily good, but there are a lot of neat little moments. Some highlights: the part when the bad guys torture Law by burying him up to his neck in sand in 100 degree weather, then placing a bowl of water just out of reach of his lips. Also great is a draw inside a bar in which Law tells the piano player to strike three chords, then blows his combatant away on the third note.

And check out this bit of dialogue, in a scene where Bill confronts a sleazy drifter who he realizes is one of the men he is after...

Bandit: What are you trying to say? That I am afraid?

Bill: You've got a stupid face, but you get it.

The Bandit then flips off his hat, revealing an earring that Bill, in a flashback, recalls one of the men wearing when his family was killed.

Bandit: Come on, hero. Let's you and me see which of us is afraid.

Bill, remembering the role this man played in the murder of his family, says nothing.

Bandit: Something the matter, hero? Have you decided to change your mind?

Bill: Yeah. I've decided to kill you.

Just badass. Bill then proceeds to shoot the guy in cold blood. The movie is chock-full of stuff like this. Some of the lines are awesome, like the ones above, while some are just dumb, but it's all in good fun.

So that's Death Rides A Horse, perhaps my favorite of the whole bad, low-budget Leone-knockoff western subgenre. I remember the day I fished it out of a $5 bargain bin at Wal-Mart. It has lived on in my dorky heart ever since. Tomorrow we'll look at another, more famous individual who also clearly shares my love for this movie: Quentin Tarantino.