Bloody Outlaws

The other night my mate really wanted to watch a Western, but I insisted on watching a horror film. What do you do in that sort of situations? You search for a compromise and choose to watch a horror-western. Now, experience already taught me that these genre amalgamations are usually very substandard. "Ghost Riders" definitely confirms this unwritten rule. This obscure and righteously forgotten late 80's flick is indescribably dull, derivative and gore-free. The plot, as you can undoubtedly guess from the title, revolves on the vengeful return of an outlaw posse in ghostly format. In the late 1800's, they were lynched by an angry mob and now they are back to extract revenge on the descendants. I wish I got a nickel for each time I wrote this synopsis down in a user comment! I'd be rich by now! The ghost riders can only be killed with an antique shotgun that lies hidden underneath the bed of one of the descendants, but he lies half dead in an old cemetery throughout half of the movie. The screenplay is full of dull and completely irrelevant dialogs as well as completely gratuitous padding footage. There's even an extended scene following the hunting method of a spider that caught a mosquito in her net! If I wanted to see that, I would have switched to the National Geographic channel. There's absolutely no gore or gruesome make-up effects, since the ghosts use guns, and their costumes look like cheap leftovers from a thrift store. The only good thing I can write about "Ghost Riders" is that it caused me to have Johnny Cash's awesome song "Ghost Riders in the Sky" stuck in my head for several days already now. I suggest you listen to that on You Tube instead of seeking out this film.

To keep it short just avoid this movie. The premise of an old west killer putting a curse on the preacher of a lynch mob that subsequently haunts the family for generations may sound promising but in delivery it simply fails. After moving from 1886 Texas we join a Professor of Texan history in 1986, who happens to be the great-great grandson of the hangin' preacher. His son(a Vietnam vet and stunt pilot) is coming for a visit with his two mechanic buddies and a young lass who is smitten with him in about as much time as it takes to say "this movie sucks". Now the idea of old outlaw ghosts seeking bloody revenge should have been good for a few chills but the majority of this no budget affair takes place on a sunny blue skied day, which certainly takes away much of the fear of not knowing where the spectres are coming from! Add to this lame mix bland to just plain bad acting, generally annoying characters, a simplistic, non suspenseful and amateurish script, horrible sound quality and a limp pay off and you have a text book example of a time waster. Avoid this movie. It had potential but simply blew it!

If you never heard of this movie before don't be surprised, as apparently it never made it into DVD and after a viewing it's no wonder why. The idea of the movie was rather cool, tho - A bunch of gunslingers come back to life to revenge their somewhat unjust killings 100 years later, and instead they take it out on a group of hikers - but sadly it is somewhat clumsy executed. As someone said in other review, the film mixes a lot of genres - horror, western, action, romance... - but none of them really works. But without a doubt the most disappointing thing for me was its misleading cover and title, since by no means the cowboys return to life as ghosts but in their human form and can be perfectly shot and killed. All in all, after watching the movie I was left with a sense of entertainment, and I think the actors did a great job overall. Too bad the pretty Cari Powell never made another movie after this one, she really stands out from the rest of the crew and I think she would have deserved much better. Final rating: 5 out of 10.

Santa Rio, Texas, 17th September 1886: Reverand Thadeous Sutton (Bill Shaw) hangs ruthless outlaw Frank Clements (Mike Ammons); one hundred years later, the spirit of Clements returns with his ghostly gang to take revenge on the reverand's descendants, historian Jim and his son Hampton (Jim Peters).

The plot for Ghost Riders is extremely derivative - it's John Carpenter's The Fog given a Wild West spin, with an ending that copies Night of the Living Dead, as the protagonists barricade themselves in a cabin and try to keep the ghosts from breaking in. Of course, it's nowhere near as good as either of those classics.

The majority of the film follows pilot Hampton, his friend Cory (Ricky Long) and token beauty Pam (Cari Powell) as they try to avoid being shot by the undead outlaws; this involves lots of running through the woods, scrabbling through underbrush and swimming through rivers, pausing occasionally to shoot the spooks (who fall down dead, but soon return). The direction is pedestrian, the acting weak, and there's an awful lot of tedious padding to stretch the film to feature length.

Ghost Riders was shot for a measly budget of $58,000, which is an impressive feat, and it looks like it cost a lot more, but none of this means that the film is any good.

3/10 for the bloody squibs.

What is it with these micro budget regional horrors that makes 'em so indefinably compelling? To me at least, the territories located a few left turns and a lot of country road away from standard issue teen slaughter fare can be remarkably interesting places, or at least a good deal of fun and Ghost Riders is no exception. It has one of those "sins of the father shall be visited upon the son" type set ups, here the sin in question is a vigilante hanging perpetrated by a priest on evil wild west era scuzzball Frank Clement, who naturally returns to life a hundred years later for a bit of the ole gun blazing vengeance, along with a few cronies. In the firing line are Jim and Hampton Sutton, descendants of the earlier hanging priest, a couple of Hampton's buddies and of course a pretty and easily led young lass researching Texan history. Now before you start to wonder, this one doesn't go down the zombie cowboys or even ghost cowboys route, these baddies are pretty much just flesh and blood types, they don't even have period garb. They do fire guns and act capably menacing though, and so the second half of the film is somewhat exciting in a low rent kind of way, as our protagonists are hunted by impassively deadly foes. What the film never attains though is fear or wonderment, it is in fact barely a horror film at all, whilst despite its western theme this one could just as well have say, drug dealers as the baddies and aside from the clumsy final moments it would make little difference. So you might wonder who this is aimed at, and outside of those who will watch anything, it's a little hard to tell. I had a pretty fun time though, it's a film that scores by its very mundanity. The central characters are all relatable types, well maybe not Hampton, him being a slightly troubled Vietnam veteran, but he is still likable. Meanwhile Ricky Long does typical early twenties type OK and even looks to be around that age, while Arland Bishop plays the token idiot of the piece without being too irritating. The ordinariness, the way the characters get along, it ends up being a fair amount more sympathetic than a lot of 80's junk and hence the more fun in the second half when the action really gets going. The film may open with a fun cheap western shootout but the first half is pretty typical scene setting "suspense" building stuff. Cool shots of a spider snacking, I could have done with more like that. More walking around, stock footage padding and whatnot, though the scenery is nice I would have liked something a bit more off key. This probably just stems from having watched The Prey too many times though… Anyhoo, I don't exactly recommend this one, but if you have a lot of time on your hands you could do far worse. Worth around a 5.5 for 80's junk-hounds, rounded up to a 6 for IMDb.