A Lenda do Cavaleiro Fantasma

This must have sounded pretty good on paper. The basic idea was "Let's make a western featuring two opposing supernatural characters. To give them some depth, we'll make at least one morally ambiguous, and we'll make them manifestations of some ancient forces that periodically appear on the earth to battle each other." The high-concept pitch could have been "High Plains Drifter (1973) meets the 'ancient slayer' segments of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' (1997)". To sweeten the deal, the producers, including director and co-writer Alex Erkiletian, would have noted that they could acquire genre icons such as Angus Scrimm (best known for the film series beginning with Phantasm, 1979), Denise Crosby (best known for "Star Trek: The Next Generation", 1987, and Pet Sematary, 1989), and Robert McRay (best known for "Conan", 1998), who was also co-writing the film. For the cherry on top, they even managed to get Stefan Gierasch, who was actually in High Plains Drifter.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Unfortunately, the finished product barely resembles the recipe. Yes, the genre icons are present, but the crux of the plot was almost completely removed, as the script ended up being a complete mess, with horrible dialogue and holes so big that it seems more like a slab of Swiss cheese that's been used for skeet shooting. And Erkiletian directs the cast to be so pretentiously melodramatic that it would make Crosby's stint on "Days of Our Lives" (1965) seem like David Cronenberg's Spider (2002) in comparison.

The bulk of Legend of the Phantom Rider is just a standard issue western. Sure, it's a violent western, but there's nothing supernatural about it. It could be enjoyable as a western if it didn't have the gaping plot holes and melodrama. Crosby is Sarah Jenkins. She's traveling with her husband, her son and her daughter to "stake their claim" in the western United States. The year is 1865--the end of the Civil War. During an opening dialogue-free scene that is painfully slow, a few cowboys come out of nowhere and begin harassing the Jenkins family. Dad gets beat up. Mom is raped. Eventually, after a strange bald guy shows up (we later learn that this is Blade, played by McRay), dad and the boy are killed. We have no idea why any of this is happening. Sarah manages to shoot one of the marauders, but then, just as inexplicably, she and her daughter are left alive, on their own. Their wagon and all of their belongings are gone.

She eventually makes it on foot to a small outpost named Saugus. The townsfolk are reluctant to help her and we quickly learn why--Blade and his men had just taken over the town a couple days previously. The new sheriff doesn't last long. Blade inducts himself as the law. Erkiletian and McRay, as writer, hem and haw to kill some time, leaving a small source of victims in town for Blade and his men to play with, until finally a mysterious man named "Pelgidium" (also played by McRay), presumably the "phantom rider", shows up and starts taking control for his own ends.

Let's talk about some of the specific problems with the script. As presented on our television screens, there are a great many inexplicable aspects and developments. Why doesn't anyone take action against Blade? He leaves himself open to it more times than we can count on both hands. Where do all of Blade's men come from? Eventually he has a small army. We never learn how they got there or who they are. Why do the townspeople stick around? You'd think that at least while Blade is running roughshod, they'd leave and try to get some help or something. Why does Blade keep referring to Sarah as something special? Further, there are countless scenes that are non-sequiturs. New sets of characters show up to new locations for various "posing" confrontations with no justification, no motivation, etc. We often don't see how they get out of their previous predicaments, either.

For some of these problems, if you do a bit of background research into the film, including the box description and the actor bios on the DVD (which by the way, feature far more character development in a short paragraph than the entire script does), you can figure out some answers. That stuff needs to be shown on screen. A good film doesn't necessitate prerequisite research. True, we could say that some of it is hinted at in the overblown, convoluted text opening (at this point in time, disturbingly reminiscent of Alone in the Dark, 2005) and the brief, retroactively pointless scene that follows it, but there needs to be more than an extremely vague allusion to grander ideas. If there's something supernatural about Blade we need to be shown or told that, at least implicitly. Stupid character actions surrounding Blade aren't sufficient. That just makes it seem like we need to go back to Scriptwriting 101. The same goes for Pelgidium, even though that character at least seems cool, if only because he's kind of a cross between Eastwood's "Stranger" and a 1980s hair band guitarist.

The melodramatic performances are a bit bizarre, to say the least. Both Crosby and McRay speak in weird, affected accents/dialects and utter phrases that seem out of place for the period setting. McRay as Blade is supposed to seem a bit omnipotent and evil, but he tends to come across as annoying and maybe flakey instead. The music also sounds a bit generic and tends to get monotonous.

Still the film isn't a complete failure. Crosby is enjoyable even if she's out of place, and it's always a pleasure seeing Scrimm. There is some decent cinematography. The sets/locations are good. Bits of competence as a western keep emerging, and the violence/mayhem level is satisfactory. But proceed to this film only with extreme caution.

This movie comes as a refreshing surprise in a world - the horror movies scenario - that is normally very dull and predictable. This is a perfect mixture - perhaps too slow sometimes, but still effective - of a supernatural tale (a couple of eternal avatars who fight one against the other across the space and time) with a classic western tale, built around the usual ghost town of the late Civil War era. Good acting, good atmosphere, very good photography, make this movie a one of kind experience, full of ethereal surprises, often recalling other not forgotten movies (like several Clint Eastwood ones) and especially in the character of the disfigured stranger the old, good comic book Jonah Hex.

I love Westerns. I love Horror.

Naturally, when I saw a trailer for this many years ago, I was stoked. However, after seeing the final product, I wish it had stayed buried.

While displaying some decent cinematography (which was all they showed in the trailer; surprise-surprise), everything else in this film was a lousy mesh of Z-grade talent. Among the lifeless direction, we get a dude ranch set, horrible editing, a soundtrack consisting of three drum beats and sound design worse than a student film. These aspects were the highlight of the movie.

Where 'Legend of the Phantom Rider' ('Pelgidium' at least sounded interesting) really screws the pooch is in it's casting. I've seen people on daytime soap operas that would make more convincing Old West characters. The lead bald guy (Blade/Pelgidium) should be barred from the acting profession - he's as bad as they come. Even reliable actors like Angus Scrimm and Denise Crosby felt gone.

Did I mention that every scene moved like a slug at a salt mine?

Please...do yourself a favor and stay as far away from this film as possible.

Nobody makes westerns anymore, and it's a damn shame, if you ask me. Also, until "The Sixth Sense," nobody made ghost stories, either. Needless to say, most attempts at ghost westerns have been dismal flops. "Into the Badlands" and "Grim Prairie Tales" failed, despite having James Earl Jones and Helen Hunt between them. It's too bad, because westerns and horror movies have a lot in common, dealing as they do in human desperation and fear. "Trigon: the Legend of Pelgidium" is one of a very few movies that actually get the difficult mix right. It hasn't been released commercially yet, but I managed to get into a screening anyway (I'm sneaky like that, plus I went to high school with the director), and I was impressed.

The story concerns a settler woman who, after her husband and son are killed, finds her way into a rundown town, ten days' ride from nowhere, which is beholden to a predatory gang of bandits led by a crazed ex-Confederate, who, it is whispered by the terrified townsfolk, cannot be killed. There is a supernatural, cosmic good-and-evil theme that runs through this movie like a shark just under the waves. Too often, movies make the mistake of spelling out their ghostly elements too literally. Fortunately, the writer, Robert Ray, and the director, Alex Erkiletian, have the good sense to keep it subtle. The supernatural is more effective when it is not fully known. There is clearly something going on beyond the town-under-siege we've seen in a million old movies, but its specific nature is left properly ambiguous.

The movie takes place in 1865, when the psychic wounds of the Civil War were still fresh, and hundreds of men wandered West whose only lives were killing and allegiance to a lost cause. The hallmarks of this tragic chapter in history are all over this movie in subtle ways; the bad guys wear fragments of rebel uniforms and fly a tattered Dixie flag, the town preacher is left hollow and beaten by what he saw in the war, and everyone looks tired and uncertain.

The cast, mainly of unknowns and under-knowns, turn in some great performances. Denise Crosby (ah, Lt. Yar, we hardly knew ye) shows understated strength as the woman who wanders into this nightmare. Robert McRay is mesmerizing as the villain, who has a cold smile that would make a rattlesnake cringe. The supporting cast is good, too. As bandit sub-chief Suicide, Zen Gesner (of TV's execrable "Sinbad") gives his character affecting, surprising humanity, even while slicing someone's hand off. Jamie McShane's icy, slow-talking Victor makes an impression, as does Scott Eberlein as the hapless thug Danny, whose final moments make up one of the movie's most creepy and memorable scenes. Stefan Gierasch does a quirky turn as a shopkeeper, and George Murdock makes a vivid judge in his single scene (but it's a good one). But the best, good-to-see-him-again performance comes from Angus Scrimm (famed for "Phantasm," playing second banana to a homicidal steel softball) as the Preacher, whose spirit and faith are almost, but not quite, broken by the horror of the world. When he says that God despises a violent nature, you ignore him at your peril.

Too often, directors shoot a movie from a "Dramatic Elements Playbook" from which they never deviate ("Ah, emotional moment? Sez here use a soft-focus close-up.") Erkiletian avoids the cookie-cutter approach, shaking up our conventional expectations of westerns, and movies in general. One of my favorite scenes was one where Crosby comforts her young daughter after they have buried the father and son. Most movies would do this in close-up, so we could see the gleaming tears, etc., but Erkiletian places the camera at a detached distance. We hear the quaver in Crosby's voice and see the grave in the foreground, as the Arizona sky rolls impassive and uncaring behind them. It's very effective.

To be fair, this is not a massive-budget movie, and it shows in a few places. A couple of the minor performances are a bit perfunctory, and a number of people expire from gunfire by clutching their bloodless stomach wounds and staggering around a bit. But overall, this movie reminds me of the occasional gem that turns up in the sludge of late-night cable and direct-to-video shelves. It's well-made, smart, and entertaining well beyond its weight class. One can only hope it gets picked up.

Alex Erkiletian's "Legend Of The Phantom Rider" of 2002 is, as far as I am considered a rather boring and crappy attempt of a Horror Western, and I am actually a big fan of Horror Westerns.

According to the film, an ancient legend says that good and pure evil face each other in man-shape once in a few centuries. In 1865, a little town somewhere in the West is terrorized by a gang of outlaws lead by a former confederate called 'Blade' and his right hand man 'Suicide'. Sarah Jenkins (Denise Crosby), whose husband and son were murdered by villainous Blade and who has to take care of her little daughter on her own, is especially victimized by the gang, and desperately tries to convince the townspeople to fight back. But then a creepy, mysterious stranger turns up, and he turns out to be extremely fast with his guns. Thenceforward, the brutal gangsters have to learn what fear is every time the eerie man with the fast guns shows up. Blade, however, doesn't seem the least bit afraid...

"Legend Of The Phantom Rider" is basically just the same old western tale of good vs. evil, which the makers of this movie tried to spice up with a little bit of creepiness. This turned out to be a failed attempt, however, since the movie is not really creepy, the mysterious 'Phantom Rider' may look a little creepy, but that's basically it. The movie is also said to be very violent by some, but it is by far not as brutal as it is hyped to be. Most of the acting is terrible, the only actor I liked in this was Irvin Keyes (in the role of an Outlaw named Bigfoot), simply for the reason that he has got to be one of the ugliest looking people I have seen in a movie. The constant drum score, which would normally be intended to build up suspense in some parts of a movie, but certainly not throughout the whole movie is more than annoying.

To be fair, "Legend Of The phantom Rider" is not a completely terrible failure. It has some stylish moments, in some parts of the movie the photography is quite good, there is some good gunplay and the mysterious stranger looks quite creepy. This is a bearable movie, but certainly not a good one. If you are looking for a good Horror-Western, I would recommend movies like Giulio Questi's great surreal Spaghetti Western "Se Sei Vivo Spara" aka. "Django Kill... If You Live Shoot!" of 1967 instead.

All things considered, "Legend Of The Phantom Rider" is not a movie that has to be avoided at all costs, but it is definitely rather crappy. Bearable 3/10