HANGING FOR DJANGO (1969) Review

TODAY'S BARGAIN: HANGING FOR DJANGO (1969) - Standalone DVD
PRICE: $2

Directed by: Sergio Garrone
Written by: Sergio Garrone
Starring: Anthony Steffen, William Berger, Mario Brega, Riccardo Garrone, Nicoletta Machiavelli

Sergio Garrone is one of the best examples of the Italian exploitation director, content to cash in on whatever topic was popular at the time. Before he started capitalizing on the nazisploitation craze with films like SS CAMP 5: WOMEN'S HELL and SS EXPERIMENT LOVE CAMP Garrone churned out a few of the countless Django cash-ins including the excellent DJANGO THE BASTARD and of course HANGING FOR DJANGO, which incidentally (like a lot of the others) doesn't even contain a character named Django. Stranger still is the film's German title (DJANGO UND SARTANA DIE TODLICHEN ZWEI) because the film stars neither a Django nor a Sartana character. There's a Santana which is close, but not related at all.

It may not have a character named Django but what this film does have is some pretty decent spaghetti western talent from the likes of Anthony Steffen (who starred in approximately one billion other 'Django' flicks), William Berger (who played the brilliant Banjo character in SABATA among others) and Mario Brega (basically a staple in any Leone western) who for once gets to play a good guy! HANGING FOR DJANGO (also known as NO ROOM TO DIE and NOOSE FOR DJANGO depending on which copy you happen to pick up) has bounty hunters, ruthless villains, sweaty Mediterranean 'Mexicans', plenty of gunfights, double-crosses and a hefty sum of money up for grabs. The only way this could get more spaghetti westerny is if Ennio Morricone scored it, which unfortunately he did not.

HANGING FOR DJANGO follows the bounty hunter Johnny Brandon (Steffen) as he works to take out Mr Fargo (played by by Garrone's brother Riccardo), a people trafficker who has been smuggling Mexican's across the Rio Grande into Texas. His method is to take their money, load them into wagons and then eventually get rid of them by dumping them over the cliff into the river. He's not a very nice guy.
Brandon teams up with fellow bounty hunter Everett (Berger), a bible-toting man who dresses like a preacher and wields a seven-barrelled rifle. But although they're both bounty hunters the two couldn't be much less alike and soon when the prospect of a hefty amount of cash comes along all bets are off and its every man for himself.

Forget about Steffen, it's William Berger who steals the show here and his seven-barrelled rifle is the most badass gun since his brilliant banjo rifle in SABATA. And speaking of guns there are gunfights aplenty on offer here, and the body count is massive. There may not be much blood but there are bodies falling off hills and down ravines (By the looks of it this movie was shot almost exclusively in a quarry) all over the place. Garrone is far from the best Sergio when it comes to the genre (Leone and Corbucci are both far superior) but HANGING FOR DJANGO is a really neat entry to the spaghetti western landscape and easily one of the better 'Django' flicks out there. That's not to say that it's without it's flaws, the acting is mostly poor and the dubbing is distractingly bad and there are plot holes and inconsistencies aplenty (I'm pretty certain the English translation isn't 100% accurate either). If you can find this for $2 like I did then I urge you to pick it up and keep an eye out for Garrone's other brilliant western DJANGO THE BASTARD while you're at it.

CONTAMINATION (1980) Review

TODAY'S BARGAIN: CONTAMINATION (1980) - Part of a 20 Film Horror / Sci Fi Collection
PRICE: $20 / 20 Films = $1

Directed by: Luigi Cozzi
Written by: Luigi Cozzi, Erich Tomek
Starring: Ian McCulloch, Louise Marleau, Marino Masé, Siegfried Rauch

CONTAMINATION is part of that oh so special breed of pseudo-sequel cash-ins that Italian filmmakers seemed to love pumping out in the 70s and 80s. CONTAMINATION is to ALIEN what ZOMBI 2 is to DAWN OF THE DEAD or what CRUEL JAWS is to JAWS; totally unofficial, unrelated but nevertheless marketed as a sequel just for the promise of some quick cash. This is most certainly not the only one (Ciro Ippolito's ALIEN 2: ON EARTH was released only months earlier) but it is especially noteworthy for being immortalized as one of the UK's infamous 'Video Nasties'. In fact to be honest its inclusion on that particular list is probably the only reason this movie hasn't faded into complete obscurity.
As often as you might hear about this film being a 'rip-off' of ALIEN, in reality it really isn't all that similar apart from the inclusion of the alien eggs and the 'queen alien' towards the film's end. It also happens to be low budget and set entirely on Earth and the first 2 minutes are all you need to be certain that what you're watching is in no way related to Ridley Scott's movie.

While we're on the subject of Italian pseudo-sequels, the beginning of CONTAMINATION is suspiciously reminiscent of the beginning of Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE. A ship with no signs of life is spotted headed towards New York City. Police and medical experts board the ship (wearing respirator's which on one hand make their voices impossible to understand while on the other hand masking the terrible dubbing) to investigate and swiftly stumble upon a whole slew of dead bodies. But the bodies themselves aren't the most terrifying part, it's the way the bodies have been torn apart; as though they've exploded from within...
Soon they come across the ship's cargo which is comprised of boxes and boxes of coffee, except that it's not really coffee at all. One of the boxes has broken open, revealing a group of large, green egg-shaped objects. One of these has rolled conveniently under a warm steam pipe and has begun glowing and pulsating. One of the investigators picks it up (exactly what you should do with a mysterious object found on a ship full of dead bodies) and it promptly explodes, spraying it's juices all about the place. What's worse is that anybody who comes in contact with the goo also explodes. Cue some deliciously gory chest and face explosions (the gore is especially nasty due to the fact that real animal guts were used in some scenes).

The only survivor of the ship investigation , Lt. Tony Aris (Masé) eventually teams up with Col. Stella Holmes (Marleau) and ex-astronaut Ian Hubbard (McCulloch) to find out where the exploding eggs are coming from and what they are being used for, and just who is the mastermind behind smuggling them in boxes with 'coffee' written on the side (because that's a completely foolproof plan). The answer involves a cave on Mars, a South American coffee plantation and a whole lot of exploding bodies. We're also treated to some dumb dialogue, terrible dubbing and unintentionally funny scenes like my personal favorite when Stella is trapped in a bathroom with an egg about to explode. Hiding in the shower and throwing a towel over herself would probably be a good idea, but nowhere near as hilarious as sitting on the floor wrestling with the doorknob for a half hour. And then there's the inane 'logic' the film offers - "oh, heat causes the eggs to ripen and explode... bring out the flamethrower!". Brilliant.

CONTAMINATION is a bad movie in just about every way. The acting is bad, dialogue is awkward, dubbing is crap and its low budget is very obvious. So why the hell do I love this movie so much? Is it the impressive gore? The music by Goblin? The presence of Ian McCulloch? The certain mystique that comes with being a Nasty? I like to think that's its a combination of all of that and more. CONTAMINATION has almost all of the ingredients for a classic Italian exploitation flick (some nudity would have gone a long way) and if this kind of trashy cinema is up your alley I suggest you track it down, especially if you can find it for a decent price. Just make sure you get it in its uncut form so you get the benefit of all the movie's juicy mess.