I cavalieri della città perduta

I have to admit that I am fascinated by the concept of crossing the Western with horror movie elements and while this may not be the best example there are some pretty compelling movies out there existing as Horror Western hybrids: CURSE OF DEMON MOUNTAIN, THE STRANGER'S GUNDOWN, HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, the notorious CUT THROATS NINE, good old GRIM PRAIRIE TALES and Charles Band's GHOST TOWN are amongst the best I can name off the top of my head.

GHOST RIDERS is another Prism Video release of yet another ultra low budget regional horror affair, along with THE FOREST and SATAN'S BLADE, seemingly inept more or less direct to video efforts by young filmmakers starting out who simply didn't have the budget or talent to really score an EVIL DEAD like classic. This one was made in and around Waco, Texas, and concerns itself with a bunch of ideas copped from just as many sources. From HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (via STRANGER'S GUNDOWN) we get the idea of gunfighters returning from the grave to avenge their somewhat unjust killings, though imported from Euro Horrors like HORROR RISES FROM THE TOMB the targets of their wrath are the present day descendants of those who executed them, and finally a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD type ending.

Toss in a smattering of teen horror themes and a slightly unstable Vietnam vet who didn't find time to change out of his camouflage fatigues & walks around packing a nickel-plated .45 and we have the makings of 85 minutes of dreck that actually isn't as bad as the average ratings here reflect. The plot concerns an elder researcher who stumbles across the story of a mass execution 100 years before that sent a gang of crooks to their tombs with a vow to avenge themselves. At more or less the same time a group of young misfits embarks on an excursion to find the old cemetery to find the resting place of their relatives who find themselves pursued by a posse of cowboys who pick them off one by one, eventually leading to a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD like climax where the survivors barricade themselves into a ranch house and try to fight them off.

There are some decent moments of gunslinger gore, a nice explosion or two, and a pretty young leading lady who doesn't shirk at the idea of stripping down to her undies for a dip in the ole' swimmin hole. One of the misfits is a Vietnam vet and helps to guide the youngsters to relative safety, and there is some not so subtle commentary on 1980s youth culture fixations like the Walkman craze and the idiotic fashions that we appallingly wore back then. None of it really amounts to anything though, and after a protracted ending showdown the movie just sort of ends -- which isn't necessarily a bad thing, though none of it is hardly memorable.

One curious aspect of the film regards this undead cowboy posse, who are not shown as "ghosts" or zombies or even some kind of spectral presence like Clint Eastwood's Preacher from PALE RIDER, but are reborn as actual cowboys who can be shot & killed all over again. While probably owing more to the production's limited budget than to a directorial choice, the decision to depict them as such sort of defeats the purpose of having them be undead gunslingers in the first place. Why have a movie about ghost cowboys and not have them be actual ghosts? Until the very ending of course, when it is convenient for the plot.

The one thing I did like about the film is it's totally ordinary look. None of the scenery or interiors looks particularly cinematic or out of the ordinary run of experience for most viewers. It looks like any old river running down any old stretch of rural Texas, and the characters don't wear costumes so much as whatever clothes they had onhand: Even the cowboys seem to be wearing Levis jeans and work shirts rather than "authentic" Western gear, so I can see how some viewers may be disappointed that the film doesn't have the filmic look of something like THE EVIL DEAD. It's all plain and ordinary but that's Waco for you, I guess, and the video is still another rare example of an attempt to blend Western themes with an outright horror movie setting (or the other way around, maybe) and I kind of like that.

5/10

I was disappointed in this movie.I found this movie on a discount shelf and bought it looking for a good "bad" movie. what I found was a bad "bad" movie. The plot was your basic "ghost seeks revenge on family of man who killed him",but it was never quite clear then,why the family wasn't wiped out years ago. Many of the scenes really had nothing to do with the plot and several of the final scenes appeared to be influenced by Night of the Living Dead though not as well executed.The outlaws were not very convincing and Bill Shaw, in the roles of the preacher and his grandson, was not very effective. The sound quality was bad in spots,but that could just have been on my tape.In any case it meant I didn't have to listen to the poor delivery of some really bad dialog.

I can't recommend this film.I gave it a 2 only because it wasn't as bad as Kazaam.

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.

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.

This was a very strange movie and I'm not sure if the genre horror can accurately describe it. It is a mix between horror, action, western, romance, and drama. That mix doesn't work. It's not scary, there isn't much action, it's barely a western, the romance is very slight, and the drama isn't very dramatic.

The plot of the movie is that an outlaw and his gang who were executed in the late 1800's rise from the dead 100 years later. They want to kill the current generation of the preacher who had them executed.

The VHS cover made it seem like the outlaws would be skeleton ghosts on horses when they rise from the dead, but they weren't. They looked the same way they did before they died and they never say anything as ghosts. They were silent and non-scary. I'm not surprised that this movie never made it to DVD or Blu-ray.