The Scarlet Worm

This effort by a band of six young cinephiles works well. Don't watch it expecting "High Noon" quality acting and scripting. But if you're looking for a highly original, yet true to genre Western, I recommend "The Scarlet Worm."

It was released by "Unearthed Films" so I expected a 30-or-more year old film, literally dug up out of old B movie archives. But this is a new effort, made in 2010 and released in 2011. The setting is the early 1900s, and plot is complex, including traditional cattle rustling, revenge killings and more. It's dark, gritty style is evident in the gunfight sequences and in the sympathetic, non-sensationalist treatment of the girls in the brothel. It held my attention right to the last as it unfolded.

A couple of things to note: First, it has some pretty violent scenes so I wouldn't make it a family-night movie. Second, it features some classic Western movie stars whose heyday was decades ago but whose names you might remember, like Montgomery Ford and Dan van Husen. They and their young compadres give this low-budget movie panache. Enjoy, pardner.

The Scarlet Worm: Finally! Wild Dogs in mass-release! Longtime fans had a lot to get salivating over: Fredianelli free from starring and cinematography and able to focus on directing, Lambert writing (after his wildly successful two previous outings with Fredianelli), Stielstra starring, special guest stars, and a solid, sordid grindhouse set-up. Everything was in the right place, but with all of these elements, the final product ends up feeling a bit too restrained, a bit too tame to live up to its premise and the promise of all involved. If the earlier Fredianelli efforts sometimes felt a bit slapped-together or a bit rough around the edges, this effort feels a bit too pretty and concerned with professionalism (a gambit that seems to have paid off in some ways). A perfect point of comparison is A Habitation of Devils, Lambert's previous collaboration with Fredianelli. That movie is super rough around the edges, with a script that barely manages to bounce between generic stereotypes and digital video cinematography sometimes so underlit to the point of indiscernibility. However, it manages these hiccups due to a sense of what, for lack of better terms, I'll call "going for it." This same "going for it" mentality is all over other WD pics like The Minstrel Killer and even the recent Apocrypha. Why then does even Stielstra, normally a maniac when facing the camera, play it so cool? Why can't the genre kings (Fredianelli and Lambert) deliver on some of their promises? Why does Print have a reputation for being such a dirty bastard and such a merciless killer but never show us why? Why can't we see what makes his work such poetry to him (as he says over and over and over again)? Even the flick's abortion subtext feels pretty inoffensive and tame (unexpected, consider the distributor Unearthed Films, generally known for stuff like the Guinea Pig and Slaughtered Vomit Dolls). Money was well-placed to grab Dan van Husen, who provides most of the flick's best scenes, but even his work and the (as- expected) excellent shoot-outs feel bogged down by a laborious execution of the basic genre steps. There is a nice father-son dynamic between van Husen and Stielstra, but even that seems to too frequently be displaced in favor of other beats and concerns. I wanted to love this one so much, but in the end, I just can't find as much to love about it as in the cast and crew's other various projects.

Don't you just love these bogus glowing reviews that the film's cast and crew write and then commission other people to also write on here? "Hey, rate it even an 8 or a 9 so it doesn't look TOO obvious that we padded the rating ourselves. But no lower than that!" The film is a boring, molasses-paced mess and the storyline is just laughable (and that's being nice!). The lead actor with the fake greasy mustache is also a talentless schmuck who obviously just got cherry-picked by his own friend to star in this. Films where a group of friends or bed buddies all get together to make are fine, just acknowledge that sometimes there's very little talent among your little cult. And for God's sake, don't come on here writing glaringly obvious fabricated reviews glorifying yourselves!

A middle-aged hired gun named Print (Aaron Stielstra) is obsessed with having style and poetry to his assassinations.

He has been working with loyalty for his boss, Mr. Paul (Montgomery Ford), for years. But his latest assignment - the killing of a brothel owner (Dan van Husen) who mandates cruel abortions on his whores - presents two challenges.

He must train a young understudy during the assignment, and he's been told to pull off the killing "quick and dirty" -- which may not leave time for Print's usual, obsessively imaginative methods.

OK firstly, the only reviews for this movie are stellar. Guess what that means? They are written by shills who worked on the film.

This move is absolutely horrible. Laboriously directed and no acting and poor writing. The hookers are hideous.

Stay away.

Nowadays I reckon we're lucky if we get a great western every decade or so. This doesn't qualify for great, but it is good. If you're expecting "Hollywood" - raise your expectations... this is better.

The action in the movie plays well. With influences of Peckinpah mixed with ("early not quite there yet") John Woo; credit where it's due, it didn't get unreal.

The dialog could have been tweaked better, I reckon, there was ample opportunity through the settings which were done well. The scene in front of the barber shop is an example of where the script could have gone deeper, and pushed this movie into great. Overall I liked the pacing, the arc and the various spread of characters. It didn't get overly deep into the characters, but neither were they shallow - there's an edge to all of them. I thought Montgomery Ford did a fine job.

One thing I really liked about this western? It treats the audience with a bit of respect - allowing me to draw my own conclusions; meeting with my expectations in terms of credibility, there were no "cop outs" in plot. What happened was a logical, if whacky series of events.

If you really like westerns, I don't think you'll be disappointed. I am very surprised by the low rating the movie seems to have - strange; maybe good, hard-boiled westerns are just out of style...