Mátalo

Fans of bizarre semi-psychedelic Westerns like "Keoma" should check this out. The cinematography and editing are wonderfully out of control, lotsa slo-mo sadistic violence and the movie is drenched in loud fuzzy acid rock. The simple plot deals with four ruthless thugs (incl. one ultra sexy but deadly femme fatale Claudia Gravy), gold, lust, murder and betrayal.

These eccentric hardass Italian Westerns look way better than most contempoary movies.

When someone gets a credit for providing electroacoustic special effects, you know you're in for something different. Matalo is a very different type of Western. The hero doesn't even carry a gun. He carries boomerangs.

This whole heap of weirdness doesn't have much of a plot by the way. What we get is a dodgy character called Bart get saved from hanging by a bunch of laughing Mexicans. He then proceeds to steal a bunch of gold and after Bart and the Mexicans get out of town (to a soundtrack of psych-rock), Bart shoots every single one of them and ends up meeting his two friends. They all end up at a creepy ghost town where every grave has the name Benson, and every shot front also sports the name Benson. While a fourth bandit turns up in the form of sexy Claudia Gravy, the movie starts flashing subliminal shots of an eyeball while we realise that someone else is creeping about town. Plus, Claudia seems to be playing mind games with every one of these guys.

This is all told to the sound of howling wind and strange effects, whirling camera shots, acid rock, trippy editing and bizarre acting. When Bart is seemingly shot dead during another robbery, the other three start conspiring against each other while waiting to head to Mexico.

The hero take shapes in the form of Lou Castel and his boomerangs and he spends most of the film being held captive and getting tortured, especially by Claudia Gravy (she sits on a rope swing while threatening him with a knife in one of many strange scenes). There's also a scene where a horse decides to join a fight, and those boomerangs make for some groovy camera shots when we finally get to the weird showdown at the end.

Although not as satisfying as the similar Django Kill! If you live...shoot! or as goofy as Get Mean, this is still one weird-ass Western that should be tracked down. Just don't expect much action. Claudia Gravy has a great second name, doesn't she?

i LIKE MOVIES THAT MAKE ME STRANGE SENSATION!According to Mereghetti's dictionary of movies, this western is "as a Leone at last in mescalina" and with some moments that reminds Monte Hellman's movies for the use of the empty moments. This movie seems to me an august nightmare, with the hot, the desolation and the wonderful state of madness that characterized the end of the summer. Also notable is the score of Mario Mingardi, a mix of Jimi Hendrix and Luciano Berio, with electronics that supplies dialogues. I think that in western there is nothing like the duel of Matalo, a pistol against boomerangs! Recommended for all who like strange movies in the heart of the night with a little drop of alcohol or something else!

At the beginning of the movie, Bart (Corrado Pani) is about to be hanged. With a grin, he sticks his head through the noose. Soon we see the reason for his happiness: bandits attack the town and rescue him. Bart watches a widow (probably of his latest victim) shoot herself after he kissed her, but he doesn't care at all. Later he murders his rescuers in cold blood and teams up with Theo (Antonio Salines) and Philip (Luis Davila). They arrive in Benson City, a ghost town, and meet Philip's love interest Mary (Claudia Gravy). They steal a box full of gold from a stagecoach - Bart, the protagonist so far, is casually shot there - and hide in the deserted town again for a couple of days. But Theo, Philip and Mary are not alone. The last inhabitant, the old Mrs Benson, still lives there, and Ray (Lou Castel), a boyish stranger, arrives with a woman who survived an accident in the desert. When Mrs Benson offers Ray a gun to fight against the bandits, he tells her he never fired a gun before... but he's got boomerangs.

"Matalo" is not just a movie - it's an unforgettable experience. Directed by Cesare Canevari, Mario Migliardi had the freedom to experiment with the soundtrack which has many distorted strange noises and a psychedelic guitar playing which is obviously contemporary to Jimi Hendrix. You can count the dialog scenes in the movie by the fingers of one hand. Even if people talk, it is often not a convenient exchange of information for the audience, but a meaningless distraction, for example in the scene when Mary teases Theo by showing her leg, while Philip boasts about all the gold they stole.

Bart says: "It is easier to love God than your next one, because God doesn't cheat" (in the original: "E più facile amare Dio che il prossimo perché Dio non ti frega mai"). Bart is often laughing to himself, as if he told a secret joke to himself - more likely, he is amused at the absurdity of his existence.

If somebody shoots, it's not the aim, it's the sensuality of the action that matters. Bart loves to smell the smoke of his gun after he fired. Before the stagecoach robbery, Bart and Philip don't discuss their plan like they would do in an ordinary movie. Often it is not important what is shown, but what is not shown, because that questions your habits as a viewer. After Julio Ortas' camera turned in circles, we see bodies on the ground. Who killed whom? Never mind. We all must die. God doesn't cheat.

Maybe Cesare Canevari fancied himself a radical, maybe he didn't care at all about doing a western in the first place, maybe he didn't really care a whole lot about making movies to begin with. Because Matalo is as much a western as something like Sukiyaki Western Django. People wear stetson hats and fire sixshooters at each other, they ride horses and there's a ghost town, but the rest is a blurred Gothic fantasy filmed in awkward closeups and frantic camera movements. It's artsy and aesthetically minded in the same way Jess Franco was artsy, that is to say the intention is there and sometimes the translation makes sense, but the cruddy execution is 70's European exploitation. The curtains are colored fiery red and the lightning of the overfurnished interiors is dark and expressive like it came from a horror movie or a spooky western by Antonio Margheriti.

The plot about a gang of psychopathic robbers seeking refuge in a dusty ghost town to count their dough while they wait for their boss to arrive so they can make the split, all this while the desert keeps spitting out parched half-dead stragglers at them, is bare bones. It doesn't make a lick of sense and I bet Canevari intented it that way; I can see someone trying to make a case about Matalo and existentialism, but I won't go there. The movie is more concerned with its own exaggerated theatrical shenanigans. It even has Lou Castel duke it out with the robbers using boomerangs. It has a halfmad bearded robber go wip the blue velvet bedsheets with a golden chain in slow motion, he then whips Lou Castel in slow motion out in the street, then a horse comes along and stomps him half to death, in regular motion this time (I'm kidding, it's slow motion again).

If you can imagine the inmates of an insane asylum turned loose on such a void script with a camera and filming equipment, someone has randomly worn the director's hat and points at various objects to be filmed, and a dozen of the other drooling imbeciles keep spinning the camera around, while others dressed in cowboy attire fire guns around them aimlessly and grimace into the camera; then you can imagine the way in which Matalo is special, even among spaghetti westerns. Now and then a half-competent band doles out fuzzy acid rock in the soundtrack. The use of slow motion is not rousing and lyrical like in Keoma, the baroque sensibilities are not as pronounced as those of Django Kill, the kitschen-sink craziness lacks El Topo's singularity of vision. It's mostly wired in a way to elicit "far out, man!" reactions from the psychotronic crowd; but they can always watch.. I dunno, Vampiros Lesbos?