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Westerns in a moment. Vikings first.
I meant to post about Valhalla Rising a while back before things got crazy busy, but made a note to get something on here about the movie after I saw the frankly ridiculous packaging they’ve given the thing on DVD/BluRay here in the UK. Anyone buying it cold will think they’re in for a 300 style action fest rather than the minimalist, Aguirre, Wrath of God style film they’re actually purchasing.
I was blown away by Bronson (and in particular Tom Hardy), but Valhalla Rising is Nicolas Winding Refn’s best movie so far. Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis it is not:
Pusher aside I haven’t seen enough of Mads Mikkelsen’s Danish oputput (I’m fixing that) and he’s probably best known to mainstream audiences as the Bond villain in Casino Royale, but his silent role in Valhalla Rising is epic.
Funnily enough, all I could think about after first seeing the movie is how delicious Mikkelsen could be as Avon in a big screen Blakes Seven.
Following a second viewing of the movie I found out that Mikkelsen is set to appear in a remake of one of my favourite westerns, Cut Throats Nine. Now this is going to be interesting.
The remake is helmed by Rodrigo Gudiño, founder of Rue Morgue magazine and he’s also got Harvey Keitel on board.
Like I said… interesting.
Following the success of Inglourious Basterds it’s no surprise that more Grindhouse updates are on the horizon, but the great thing about these messy, but fun exploitation flicks is how ripe they are for reinvention. I’d hate to see a direct remake of something like Cut Throats Nine as that would be completely pointless, but if you take the premise and run with it you’re going to have a lot of fun. Here’s the original set up via IMDB:
1892: A wagon load of convicts on its way to prison inches its way through the northern mountains, escorted by a cavalry troop. They are suddenly and viciously attacked by a gang of bandits searching for rumoured gold within the convoy. Only a sergeant, his beautiful young daughter and a chain gang of seven of the most sadistic, murderous men alive survive the assault. Left without horses or a wagon, the sergeant forges ahead to get his prisoners to their destination, all the while protecting his daughter, watching out for the still pursuing bandits and trying to determine which one of the prisoners was the man who murdered his wife. To make matters worse, the criminals discover that the chain binding them together is made of the gold. Their desperate journey plunges our survivors into the furthest extremes of human savagery… choked, stabbed, shot, burned. And eaten.
It’s ticking all sorts of crazy boxes already, but alas the actual film is far from great. The premise though, gold chain and all, is beautiful.
As a cult movie it’s often characterised as a horror-western which it isn’t. It’s certainly Gothic, but sadly quite a few rungs below the almost-perfect The Great Silence and never gets close to the too-easily dismissed Ravenous. It has elements of both Euro-horror of the period and giallo so I guess its a true mongrel.
Weirdly what it reminds me most of is one of the missions in Red Dead Redemption.
I’m not a gamer. But I dabble and RDR was too good an idea to pass up on. If it had simply followed a bunch of generic western movie stereotypes I’d have still enjoyed it. What’s been surprising as I slowly unravel the narrative (I’ve just reached Mexico so have a ways to go) is not just how well the plot is put together, but how perfectly all the small side moments help make the world a real one. Before I started playing the game properly I would ride upon scenes of utter desolation – a man weeping over the dead body of a woman only to blow his own brains out before I could reach him or a cannibal about to gut his latest meal. This is far more Cormac McCarthy than Gary Cooper. Even taking flowers to a friend’s wife turns into a Psycho inspired episode of creepiness.
You also get to unload pistols into lots of unsavory types and there’s enough GTA-on-a-horse style mayhem to keep my inner-teenager happy. Mostly though I just explore the prairie hoping to run into James Earl Jones and Brad Dourif out camping or maybe a Confederate girls boarding school.
It’s that good.
Last month I started putting together a giallo inspired project of my own after being asked if I had anything up my sleeve for a certain A-list actor. I think the initial draft is probably too out there for my guys in LA, but it’s nice to have a little grind in my back pocket. Plus it seems to be coming full circle so you never know…
Like the post and I’m going have to try and get a hold of the westerns mentioned but I’m really intrigued by the passage from the novel, Child of God by Cormac McCarthy. Going to go get that today!
Rachel is just finishing Child of God, which will be transferred to my book pile upon completion. I fucking loved Blood Meridian.
RDR looks sweet, I’m hoping the rumours of a PC version are true, as I am console-less.
Enjoying your more regular posting, hope all’s good in the Sizemore Bunker.
G.
Started on RDR myself last night. Two hours in and I’ve skinned animals, failed to stop a lynching and found the remains of a cannibalised kid.
A rootin-tootin good time.
Cut Throats Nine sounds awesome. Based on that, I’d go so far as to suggest a Wages of Fear remake too. The original had some great moments, but dragged a bit. In the right hands, a remake could be awesome.
Gonna check out Valhalla Rising on the recommendation.
Good post Kimosabe.
Not a big fan of ‘Cutthroats Nine’ myself, find it a little dull, with the gore only serving to punctuate this monotony in a futile bid to liven things up.
However, it is one of the few Spaghetti/Paella/Euro Westerns to feature snow. Only Corbucci’s masterpiece ‘The Great Silence’ and Sergio Merolle’s excellent ‘A Taste of Death’ spring to mind as also featuring morally ambiguous gunslingers doing their thing against a backdrop of white.
As such it remains a unique curio of the genre.
Read Child of God. Fuck it’s brutal and darker than the darkest abyss. He (Cormac McCarthy) goes to some dark places, there doesn’t seem to be taboos. I didn’t find much light in the book. Maybe it’s me, I wasn’t comfortable with at couple of the books themes but its one of those things that he explores, you never know how someone will act or react when pushed out to the very extreme edges of society. It’s not a book that I can say I enjoyed in the traditional sense but it is a good read.