A frontier town int he Wild West, 19th century. Sheriff Hunt asks Samantha O'Dwyer to extract a bullet from a convict in his prison and thus stay there for the night with deputy Nick, while her husband Arthur with an injured leg stays behind in their home. The next morning, Hunt is shocked to find the prison empty and realizes everyone there was kidnapped by a deviant cannibalistic Indian tribe. Hunt, Brooder, Chicory and Arthur embark on a three day long ride to save them. One night, bandits steal their horses, forcing the quartet to continue their journey on foot, but Arthur stays far behind due to his limping. Arriving at the cave of the Indians, Hunt and Chicory are taken captive by them, while Brooder is killed. Just as an Indian is about to kill Hunt, Arthur appears and shoots the Indians. A wounded Hunt stays behind to shoot the remaining Indians, while Chicory, Arthur and Samantha escape and flee.
A strange mish-mash of "The Searchers" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", this western-horror flick is overall still a good film with some well-made sequences, though it gets weaker the more it steps into the splatter violence territory in the inevitably trashy finale. The fictional Indian tribe of cannibals who kidnapped people from a town and thus four cowboys embark on a journey to save them missed some potentials which could have created a creepy mood, though it is suspensful and one feels the burden of responsibility of said for rescuers. The best moments appear in the beginning when the character development in the small frontier town dominates the film, from a husband who tells his wife she looks "prettier than the cows" up to Sheriff Hunt (very good Kurt Russell) who sees right through a robber in a bar when he asks for his name, the man thinks for a while and then replies with "Buddy", so Hunt observes: "You hesitated there for a while". During the night, there is this dialogue: "What's the time?" .- "It must be around nine, but it feels like next week". However, the flaw is the middle part which lingers too much and too sadistically on Arthur limping on a crutch while walking through the desert, who constantly feels pain in his sick leg, which is excessive and pointless. In fact, Arthur becomes the symbol for the story itself, which is starting to limp by that point in its narrative. The final duel between the cowboys and cannibal Indians is banal in its violence, whereas the ending feels as if someone "stole" an epilogue, but the dedicated actors and competent directing are able to carry the film.
Grade:++
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