The Scavengers

The video box called this crapsterpiece "a stark naked picture that leaves its guts hanging out!" and went on to say "The Scavengers were rotten to the core - thoroughly disgusting and had a serious sexual problem...you'll probably love them." Well, the nudity is so incompetently filmed that most of the time it's nigh impossible to fully gather what's going on. Unfortunate, since most of the women are absolutely gorgeous with heaving (natural) breasts worthy of Russ Meyer (well one of them is the incomparable Uschi Digard). The action scenes are OK, but there's not enough of them. The editor on the film was Paul Hunt which makes the shootouts that much more of a disappointment. And no, the slow motion in this film isn't fit to lick the cow plop off of Sam Peckinpah's boots. The plot is somewhat involving, with some interesting touches and character motivations, but the film doesn't have enough talent behind it to be good art, and doesn't have enough sleaze to be good exploitation.

For 1969, I am sure this movie was as progressive as the era could put out then and yet now, it's surely as offensive as any other triggering word that is lambasted among the platforms. This is definitely an exploitation film that probably achieved what it meant to. The war machine still lives on beyond color, creed, and status, so the movie had a couple good points about the desire for war, rapine, and loot, that transcends eras without a hitch. This probably has a cult following and may even be used in academia as a gospel of the Civil War and slavery, but in 2024, truth isn't as entertaining as drama.

When I sat down to watch the 1969 movie "The Scavengers" here in 2024, it was actually my first time to ever watch it. Yeah, I had never even heard about the movie, so I wasn't sure what I was in for here. And in a sense, then writer Bob Cresse and director Lee Frost had every opportunity to entertain and impress me.

The storyline is a slow starter, and about the first one-third of the movie felt like little more than an opportunity for writer Bob Cresse and director Lee Frost to show off a lot of nudity and lewd scenes. Yup, there was't a whole lot of intellectual entertainment going on here. Then the movie picks up a bit and becomes watchable, but not outstanding or particularly memorable.

Of course I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list. But I will say that the acting performances in the movie were fair.

The blood in the movie was very fake and insanely unnaturally red, and that just didn't really work in favor of the overall impression of the movie.

"The Scavengers" was not a good movie in any way. And it is definitely not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time. Just checking it off the watched-movies-list and moving on.

My rating of "The Scavengers" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

Despite a very low budget, and some marginal acting, "The Scavengers" intriguing script pushes the film into above average territory. There is a gritty feel throughout, brief nudity, at least a bunch of Negro degradation, several Civil War tunes, and a story you haven't seen before. Keeping his renegade gang of Southern soldiers as uninformed as possible, Jonathan Bliss leads them on a mission to rob a Union payroll wagon. When the robbery takes place, only a fraction of the expected booty is found. Prisoners are tortured and women raped in a misguided attempt to gain information on the missing money. A slow motion shootout decides the outcome, and a very satisfying ending features real scavengers with beaks and wings. Interesting for sure. - MERK

This is not just another movie about the American Civil War, it's a special one. True, it's very low budget and that can sometimes irritate you. But if you cast away that minor irritations, there's plenty to enjoy. The movie is about the period only months after the Civil War ended. A Southern captain never told his men that the war was over, so they go on with their killing and raping. They go to a place where the Yankees will pass with a gold transport and they wait for a chance to get the gold. They expect 300.000 dollars, but the actual amount is much less, somewhere around 2400 dollars. The captain tortures a soldier and rapes his future wife and her (black) servant till he will tell where the rest of the gold is. (Of course, it isn't there. They only transported lots of gold during the War and the war is over now.)

The movie came out in the same year as The Wild Bunch and there are a few similarities. Like Peckinpah's movie there are no real good guys and bad guys. The Southern soldiers don't know the war is over. When you hear what happened to the captain, you'll understand his hate for the Yankees and black people. You can't really say the black servant is protected by her mistress and her soldier. The black people in a nearby town have some part in the story, but their intentions aren't noble either. Which is true about most wars: it's difficult to say who are the good guys.

Another similarity between The Scavengers and The Wild Bunch is that the slow motion technique is used in both movies. Though Sam Peckinpah gets most of the credit for this technique, it's only fair to say that the slow motion scenes are better used in this movie. Especially in one of the rape scenes it's very effective and quite nauseating.

Which is a nice link to my remark that there's lot of nudity in the movie, maybe even a bit too much. With a little less naked breasts and a bit more money The Scavengers could have become a classic. Now it's a very interesting cult movie.