cinema history class: hate is my god

Session: Bring Your Own Spaghetti Western, Week 2
Movie: Hate is My God (1969)
Directed by Claudio Gora

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL

Plot:
Young Vincent sees his brother hanged. Years later he seeks revenge. Hilarity ensues.

Administrative Notes:
It has become a class tradition to do a month of Spaghetti Westerns (or Spaghetti Western-related films) every January. It's a change of pace -- a palate-cleanser, as Keith puts it. This year, because several of us have suggested specific SpagWests, Keith decided to let us each pick one for this month's session. This week was Ethan's pick.

Reaction:

It was extremely difficult to rate this movie (and Joe even decided not to) because we were clearly not seeing the movie the way it was meant to be seen. It was never dubbed into English and it was never properly cleaned up for release. There were different versions out there, each missing different pieces -- and some pieces are still missing. As a result, the disc we watched was patched together from a variety of prints, of varying quality. One part even had some TV station watermark on it. There were English subtitles (though parts were not subtitled) and the soundtrack contained at least three languages.

I had read a plot synopsis beforehand, and therefore understood most of what was going on, but even so there were plot points that I didn't follow. Had I not read the synopsis beforehand I would have been completely lost. The transitions were very abrupt, which was disconcerting. Hell, the movie opens in what seems like the middle of a scene. I can't beleieve that was really the way it was supposed to start. The whole thing semmed like a series of disconnected sequence, any one of which was understandable, but which didn't seem to fit together in any coherent way. Did the missing pieces contain helpful exposition? Probably. That, and consistent quality would have made the whole thing better.

The bottom line on all that is that if, after watching the movie, six guys (two of whom actually read a plot synopsis) can't seem to figure out major plot points -- "Was that the brother being tortured or the guardian angel?" "Wait -- there were three brothers?" "Just two. But who was Jeff?"" "No -- why'd he shoot that other guy?" -- there's something wrong.

As for what we saw, Hate is a pretty standard revenge story. Conceptually, it's very similar to Death Rides a Horse (which we're seeing next) and a variety of others. It does stand apart in that the sadistic imagery is more extreme -- the torture with fire (was that Jeff or the brother" was unusual. And the denouement when the banker gives a whole new meaning to getting spiked was actually very satisfying.

The soundtrack was bizzare. The theme music that was often used for transitioning between scenes had this sitcom feel -- like bumper music from The Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island. Though some of the music was good SpagWest guitar-based music, the bumper stuff just made everything seem weird. Or should I say weirder. 

Ratings:

Me: 5.5
Dave: 8.5
Ethan: 7
Joe: No Rating
Keith: 7
Sean: 3 out of 4