Le rescapé de la vallée de la mort

Five Bloody Graves is a western from the notorious director Al Adamson. Al was a maker of z-grade exploitation movies such as Blood of Dracula's Castle (1969) and Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970). Because of this I am rather fond of the man. Anyone who knocked out copious numbers of low budget psychotronic movies from the golden era of the b-movie sure can't be all that bad in my book. And from my admittedly limited exposure to his movies, I have to say that what I have seen has been entertaining enough. Five Bloody Graves is possibly the best of the bunch so far I reckon. It takes the form of a revenge western, with a lone cowboy seeking retribution against an Apache who killed his wife. Enter a stranded stagecoach of cannon fodder...I mean upright citizens, plus a duo of good-for-nothing gun runners and we have the bare bones of a story.

This one is unusual from the start in that it includes voice-over narration from Death himself. Some people hate voice-overs but I don't mind them as they allow us to just cut to the chase and get on with it, not relying on a host of tedious exposition scenes and in this example that is effectively what they achieve even if the device was most probably included for budgetary, rather than artistic, reasons. It would only be fair to say that despite a release year of 1970, this sure as hell is not a revisionist example of the western genre. It has a decidedly old-school presentation of the Indians as mindless killers, who aren't so much characters as they are dangerous obstacles for the white folks to deal with. This type of presentation was really out-of-date by the 60's, never mind the 70's! But I think it's partly on account of this completely unprogressive approach that makes this one kind of enjoyable as it gives it an even more exploitative approach which is always kind of fun even when you know it is wrong.

From an acting perspective we have the king of the low budget trash-fest himself, John Carradine, on hand in another role as a cranky old git. While the soundtrack was pleasingly inappropriate at times with a score made up of library music which bizarrely included the theme to the 'News at Ten', one of the most famous bits of TV music in the UK and so utterly strange sound-tracking a gun-fight in a low budget western! This musical insanity is only equalled by the later slasher movie Delirium (1979) which featured the theme music from 'Mastermind'! Anyway, the story plays out pretty much as you think it will with little in the way of surprises, although I have to award an extra point for a particularly evil character being sentenced to 'death by ant'. On the whole, this much maligned film really wasn't all that bad at all. I have been watching a fair few run-of-the-mill spaghetti westerns recently and I have to say that this one entertained me more than most of those on account of it being stranger. Good work Al...

This is a terrible film and anyone seeing it might be inclined to think it's one of the worst films that any director could make. Well, that could be true, but not if it's Al Adamson--the jerk that directed this dull film. No, FIVE BLOODY GRAVES is practically a Merchant-Ivory production compared to such Adamson "classics" as FRANKENSTEIN VS. DRACUL A, HORROR OF THE BLOOD MONSTERS and BRAIN OF BLOOD.

The film begins with some totally pointless and stupid narration by the Hollywood actor Gene Raymond. This is pretty sad, as in the 1930s, he was a top Hollywood star and the husband of Jeanette MacDonald--here, he plays "Death" with all the subtlety of Grim from "The Adventures of Billy and Mandy" thanks to a dumb script.

As far as the rest of the film goes, it's mostly the "bad Indians" killing the innocent (or semi-innocent) Whites. While this plot isn't too unusual, it was unusual for 1970, as by then Westerns had mostly begun to show Indians with a bit more depth--but not here. Yep, they're mostly just blood-crazy savages. In this mix are some incompetent actors and amazingly unattractive actresses (considering they are SUPPOSED to be alluring) and subplots involving rape that seem to have been added only to "spice up the film".

The music is odd, as it really doesn't sound very appropriate for the film. I suspect it was lifted from another film but only recognized one small section that was lifted from the old "Star Trek" television show.

While none of this is good at all, the worst thing about the film is how gosh-darn dull the whole thing is. There just isn't much to keep your attention (other than a little bit of nudity). Not nearly as silly or stupid as Adamson's horror films--this one is just bad.

Five Bloody Graves is one of the few real drive-in westerns. It's directed by the much maligned Al Adamson, who made many colorful schlockers in his day. With it's nonstop violence and gory excess, this is no exception.

In this the west is depicted as a vast wasteland of hate and savagery, populated by half mad characters including death himself. There isn't much plot except for numerous people wandering around the rugged Utah landscape trying to massacre one another. Being that this is narrated by the grim reaper, there's not much mystery as to where most of the characters wind up.

Incidentally, John Carradine, Scott Brady, and Robert Dix were back together a year later in a better drive-in western, Cain's Cuttroats.

As far as the detractors go, many of them were tricked by the deceiving advertising on the video box into thinking that this is a horror picture. Fans of B-westerns will most likely be more forgiving than the average viewer.

Five Bloody Graves (1970)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Drive-in flick about lone gunman Ben Thompson (Robert Dix) who loses his wife and sets out on his own. He ends up battling evil Apaches and eventually comes across a wide range of characters and tries to protect them from the Indians who are looking for scalps. If you want a quality Western then it would be best to skip this thing and check out some John Ford films. This movie here is pretty bad on one hand but when you compare it to other films by director Adamson then you might realize that the man certainly did much worse. I think this film here is a tad bit better than some of the director's other work simply because he pretty much throws everything into this movie. We got the crazy gunfighter, countless crazed Indians, traveling prostitutes, a preacher (played by John Carradine) and countless other characters. None of the actors give what you would call a good performance but at the same time they all fit their roles nicely and are at least entertaining to watch. I thought Dix was mildly interesting in the role of the gunfighter and Scott Brady adds some fun as a rival. John "Bud" Carlos plays the main Indian and while he doesn't look the part he at least makes the role fun. Carradine was obviously picking up a paycheck but he's always fun to watch and especially if you're a fan of his work. No matter what trash a filmmaker would give him to read he'd at least give it his all and that's certainly true here. Adamson really doesn't know how to say no as we get just about everything you'd expect to see in a film like this. We get several knife fights that end in deaths. We get countless gunfights that end in deaths. We have a couple horse chases, a few naughty women, a voice-over from Death himself and of course we got the before mentioned Carradine so what else would you want? As with most Adamson films the major downfall is the horrid pacing, which grows old very quickly and at 90-minutes the thing is simply too long to really be enjoyed.

Al Adamson is a notorious name in cult film circles as a man who made the movies of Ed Wood look good. His films are known for being amateurish, slapdash, and hard to enjoy, and having sat through some of his horror outings it's hard to disagree. However, FIVE BLOODY GRAVES, a rare entry in the western genre for the director, is a surprisingly entertaining little film.

Of course, it's still amateurish in nature, with 'anything goes' style performances and a general hurried feel to the production. On the other hand, it's absolutely packed with action and violence; the storyline is pure Cowboys and Indians, with never any more depth to it than that. Rest assured that the expected shoot-outs, knife fights and horse riding scenes come thick and fast in this film.

Adamson has amassed a wealth of has-been actors for his film, headlined by western star Robert Dix. Watch out for future cult director John 'Bud' Cardos as an Indian and John Carradine as a preacher. Unfortunately the version I watched was heavily cut for violence, but even so I found it better than many modern day attempts at the genre. Certainly no classic but it might just be the director's best film.