Massacre Time

Massacre Time (1966) AKA The Brute and the Beast, Django the Runner
Dir: Lucio Fulci
Staring Franco Nero, George Hilton, Nino Castelnuovo

After being summoned back to his hometown, Tom Corbett (Nero) teams up with his brother Jeffrey (Hilton) to take down a evil landowner and his sadistic son.



 This is one of the "Hey this one's got Franco Nero in it, rename it Django Something" movies. This one is also a bit special because it's directed by Lucio Fulci, the horror director whose best movie involves a scene where a zombie fights a shark. But this one is also pretty good. In this one Nero plays Tom Corbett, a man who is working as a prospector. He gets a letter asking him to come home, only to learn that his brother no longer owns the farm that they grew up on, as a businessman named Jason Scott and is evil son Junior (Castelnuovo) are ruling the town.

One thing that this movie has going for it is some great cinematography. The movie has some cool and inventive shots, like one that has the camera pan with the brothers as they ride into frame, dismount, and run to the shot, but as the camera follows them only to stop where they are framed inside two windows on each side of a dilapidated structure. This is a case where you have a story that's good, but how it's shot elevates it and makes it better. And this leads to it being better in a lot of ways, more suspenseful, and more tense at times.

Nero is fine in the movie, but it's obvious from the way that he's dressed and the way that he acts that he's more in the Eastwood Man with No Name mold than the pessimistic Django. And there is a lot of entertainment in seeing Nino Castelnuovo go crazy with a bull whip after being having him as Guy from Umbrellas of Cherbourg. But really the standout performance in this is George Hilton as Jeffrey. He is kind of a crazed manic that seems to be powered by alcohol. Calling out "Hey Gentlemen!" before shooting people is one of his things that gets really funny during the final confrontation. Also his bar fight scene earlier in the movie is fun, and offsets his other scenes where he gets to be a pussy drunk.

I liked it a lot. It's pretty fun and cool looking. Worth a watch.