Tom Corbett (Franco Nero) is working in the wilds when desperate word comes asking him to go home. Originally, his dear, departed mother asked him to leave town and never come back; however, she’s gone and family friend Carradine (John Bartha) is offering no details about what’s happening. Tom arrives to find the family home sold to someone named Scott, the same man who now seems to own most of town. His brother Jeff (George Hilton) is a drunk, living in a shack with the family nurse Mercedes (Rina Franchetti). Soon enough, Tom witnesses Scott’s iron glove when a family tries to leave: Scott (Giuseppe Addobbati doing his best to look like Lee Van Cleef) tries to talk them into staying, and his sadistic son Junior (Nino Castelnuovo) guns down one of them out of pure meanness when they refuse. There is no reprisal for the cold blooded murder. The town is not going to hell—it seems to be a little slice of hell on earth, already.
Carradine has answers, but he doesn’t have much time to give them before Scott’s men arrive to silence him forever. Tom is left with a mystery, and when he goes after Scott he ends up beaten and whipped for his troubles. As it turns out, Scott has a closer tie to Tom’s family than expected, and Junior sees Tom as a threat to everything he dreams about doing.
Can Tom convince his drunkard gunslinger brother to get out of the bottle long enough to lend a hand? What’s the secret Scott’s henchmen are so eager to cover up? Can two men survive when going against an army. Lucio Fulci helms a rather meanspirited slice of misanthropy with the violent western, Massacre Time (1966).
Decades before he shaped his career in a more gruesome direction with blood and guts horror, Lucio Fulci was making plenty of movies. He kicked off his career in the late 1940s with documentaries, and by the time the sixties reached their midpoint, he had twenty films under his belt. However, he was not winding down. The flicks that would start giving him his international cult success were still half a decade off by the time he got to Massacre Time. Giallo films such as A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971) and Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972) would give him the opportunity to develop his talents for mystery/thrillers, but the violence in those films was nothing new for the director.
Massacre Time is a nasty movie. Sure, we get the gunfights and fisticuffs we expect in the genre (though the hero is less prone to go for his gun in this film than we might expect), but there are a few surprises. The film opens with a hunting party, ravenous dogs, and only when a box is opened and their quarry is revealed to be a beaten, bleeding peasant do we discover this is a tip of the hat to The Most Dangerous Game (1932). The opening credits roll as that poor sucker races through the underbrush, but he’s wounded and exhausted and no match for the snarling dogs. Later, we witness Junior’s cruelty via two scenes, one a quick pistol murder and the second a lengthier, extended sequence of whipping the hell out of an unclassed opponent—the protagonist. The finale of the film involves two men fueled by a righteous rage taking on an army of baddies and blowing them away, but this is played like heroic fantasy. The earlier cruelties are played like gothic horror. The gore is far less than what is to be found in Zombie (1979) or even Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984); however, the character’s sadism is on par with the best of Fulci’s catalog.
The film is surprisingly gorgeous. Cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini knows how to light and shoot pastoral landscapes, intriguing interiors, and fight sequences well. This is without doubt one of Fulci’s finest looking films. Sure, the production is channeling Sergio Leone’s look and style, but the film also channels Fulci’s passions and quirks as well.
The script from Fernando Di Leo (with uncredited contributions from Fulci and Enzo Dell’Aquila) is a wonderful mix of emotional material, including no few measures of comedy—mostly in the form of the finest entrepreneur in town, the Chinese blacksmith, undertaker, saloon piano player, blowgun expert, and dispenser of wisdom (Tchang Yu) has some terrific comic timing for his interactions with Tom, all of which end up with him opening his palm and asking kindly for payment—Confucius says: “Pay the man.”
Unfortunately, the evidence of additional hands in the scripting is evident in a couple of off the wall moments. Some surprise twists are just a little too convenient (and completely unheralded). They arrive fast and hard as though trying to snap the audience members’ necks. However, the story is a lean one for the most part, a lovely examination of cynical heroism and the duties of family.
Franco Nero has the Clint Eastwood gaze, but his character is not the go for his guns sort until pushed to the very limits. It’s a surprisingly meaty role, as the character learns that he’s been living a lie he was never aware of. Whereas the classic Man With No Name Spaghetti Westerns gave us a character who doesn’t necessarily change according to the classic Campbellian mythic cycle, but the Nero character does grow and change over the course of the film. Still, Nero makes his character a heroic one, built from the mold of a manly man who doesn’t start fights but certainly finishes them.
George Hilton has the much more entertaining role of the deadly court jester. He plays a drunkard, a wise-cracking man, and a tough guy who starts bar fights and manages to hold his own until he is overwhelmed by numbers. When pushed to his limit, his character will sigh, pull on a glove, and then show his shooting prowess, gunning down three or six men at a time, all while grinning like a buffoon and throwing out one liners.
Nino Castelnuovo does a fine job as the reprehensible sadist, Junior. He’s he real villain of the piece, but he’s more psychologically rich than the simple scenery chewing moustache twirler. He’s the gentleman beast, the sort who dresses up in formal attire but doesn’t worry about getting his garments bloody when he gets down to the business of inflicting pain and suffering upon his opponents. Junior is a charismatic sort, the kind who can convince a crowd to back his play, to murmur “I wish it was me whipping that guy!” or cheering on his barbarism. Castelnuovo plays the character as a devil of sorts, bringing out the worst in those around him, and doing it while wearing a toothy grin.
Massacre Time was a controversial film when it hit the screens, and though time and exposure to far nastier material may have robbed it of its more controversial qualities, the film is still a fine example of Fulci’s strengths as a director. The images are interesting, the pacing is good, the genre is respected but also challenged, and while the script has a few WTF moments and sudden revelations, the story is nevertheless engaging.
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The Blu-ray of Massacre Time is a part of the Vengeance Trails Blu-ray boxed set collection from Arrow. It is also available in DVD and streaming editions.
Next, we take a look at the second film in the Vengeance Trails set: My Name is Pecos (1966). In addition to the Blu-ray boxed set, it is also available in an out of print DVD and streaming editions.
Writing for “Two Men Against An Army: Massacre Time” is copyright © 2022 by Daniel R. Robichaud.
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