Seven Cemeteries

I like Danny Trejo. I think he's an awesome guy and a badass. But his movies are almost universally awful. This does not mean I don't own more than one of them.

So I didn't expect much from this one, and at the time I'm writing this the rating is 4.3 so that didn't bode well. However, I was surprised-pleased, actually-that it wasn't near as terrible as I'd prepared myself for. Yes, it's low budget and the sfx are poor. The plot is pretty thin but consistent. Trejo is Trejo and the other actors earn their meager paychecks. There's some humor and its short runtime keeps you from getting bored or overthinking. Seriously, I don't get the hate. It's not so bad if you have a sense of humor and like Ramirez movies.

And I must be the only one who recognizes that this is a zombie takeoff on "The Magnificent Seven." It gets an extra point just for that.

A movie about a couple who try to hold off a bunch of criminals down by the border who are trying to muscle them out of their ranch. Things get heated with the criminals and things end up bad so they call in bravo (danny trejo) who of course was was a people's hero back in the day to come and help them out. Thing is bravo has just been released from prison after 40yrs and hes old and all his old gang are long dead and he doesn't really wanna get in trouble but after finding himself on the wrong side of a corrupt local cops stolen rifle things change and he's saved by a lady called bruja who dabbles in the occult and gives him the power to resurrect a squad of dead criminals and heros of his choice back from the dead to help him fight the criminal gang and save the ranch.

This sounded great on paper but in action the movie is pretty terrible. There aren't many funny parts in it and the characters are just cheesy and for some reason all keep dropping jokes about recent events even though they have been dead for 30+ years... It's obviously not a great movie and obviously not a great comedy but its watchable if you have nothing else to do.

After being released from prison, a man finds himself crossing a vicious drug lord in the area and makes a deal with a local witch to resurrect a posse of undead thug friends of his to help save the farm of a woman who's also crossed the same drug dealer and protect the land.

This was a fairly fun and enjoyable enough genre effort. The majority of the positives for this one rely on the strength of the supernatural tinges featured here that give it a somewhat wild time. The various factors in play putting the squeeze on the property where the house stands and the need for bringing in the different figures from the guy's past which comes about nicely giving this a decent enough storyline to work with. That we get the motivation for the resurrection and the different antics of how he's supposed to go about bringing his friends back to life gives everything a great time with a simple, straightforward story. That gives way to a slew of fun Action-style setpieces involving the war between the two sides starting to unfold. The initial confrontations with the zombified friends offering to help out give this some immensely fun setpieces featuring the inability to harm the undead minions which is only aided by a quirky sense of humor at the ineffectual nature of everything taking it to a wholly silly and cheesy tone. The final scenes making the sides pull out all the stops with plenty of strong setups in the race to get the house prepared, the battle outside where the overwhelming numbers force them underground, and the battle in the escape tunnels work nicely at bringing about some solid gore, heartwarming moments, and a fun resolution for a solid enough time here. There are some big issues here within this one. The main drawback with this one is the generally underwhelming sense of structure present that keeps this one meandering around instead of dealing with the main issue at the house. Featuring the journey to resurrect the zombified friends and bring them back which gives this some comedic features but also just drags along without much reason which manages to feel quite scattershot with how it plays out. It plays into the other factors for this one where the focus on comedy or Action in the middle section leaves such a lighthearted tone that nothing really feels dangerous or threatening so it's somewhat of an issue to get over with this one.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

In Texas, in a small town at the border of Mexico, the crime lord Abuelo (Sal Lopez) wants the ranch that belongs to Carmela (Samantha Ashley) and Matteo (Raul Casso), but the land belongs to their family for years and they refuse to sell. Abuelo stabs Matteo to death and tells Carmela that she has until the end of the day to deliver the ranch to him. Meanwhile, the old Santana Bravo (Danny Trejo) is released from prison on probation after serving twenty-eight years wrongly accused, and visits Matteo. He learns what happened to him and out of the blue, the corrupt Sheriff Jake (Ronnie Clark) arrives with his deputies and executes Bravo. A witch (Maria Canals-Barrera) brings his body to her cabin and resurrects him. Further, she tells Bravo that his blood can resurrect the dead. Bravo goes to seven cemeteries to bring back his old friends to defeat Abuelo and his men and protect Carmela and her ranch. The showdown between Bravo and Abuelo will begin.

"Seven Cemeteries" (2024) is a lame B-movie indicated for fans of Danny Trejo, who is too old to perform the badass he was in the past. The plot is full of cliches, and the humor does not work. There is no development of the one-dimensional characters or situations, the locations and the acting are very poor and the crew seems to be amateurish. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): Not Available.

Now, while I hadn't heard about this 2024 movie titled "Seven Cemeteries", I still opted to give it a chance, as I stumbled upon it by random chance here in 2025. Sure, I wasn't harboring the biggest of expectations to the movie.

Writers John Gulager and Joel Soisson put together a fairly enjoyable script. It certainly was something unique, I will say that much. And yeah, it was actually a watchable enough movie, I will say that much.

The movie does have a pretty good cast ensemble, and there are some familiar faces on the cast list, with the likes of Danny Trejo, Lew Temple, Efren Ramirez, Noel Albert Gugliemi and Vincent M. Ward. The acting performances in the movie were fair.

The scene where one of the zombies readjusted his broken neck was so cringeworthy to watch. It was some of the worst looking CGI effects I've seen in a long, long time. It was so fake that even a blind person would go "really?" But other than that, then the effects in the movie were actually fair.

A watchable movie, for sure, but hardly one that warrants more than just a single viewing.

My rating of director John Gulager's 2024 movie "Seven Cemeteries" lands on a five out of ten stars.